The Andy Duff Memorial Kaituna Challenge is held annually in the height of summer in Okere Falls. Andy Duff was a local raft guide and kayaker and the race was started by his friends after he passed away while traveling in America. The race is a medley of mass starts beginning with short boats followed by long boats, tandems, sledgers/swimmers then finally rafting.
The racing can get a little bit hectic with everybody looking for a chance to take out the titles but it is all in good spirit with everybody looking out for each other.
Geni took out the women’s sledging title.
I have competed in this fun race for the last 3 years but this was the first time I entered in all 5 disciplines which was pretty full on but I was stoked to make it to the finish line in all 5 races especially the sledging!
My favourite race this year was definitely the raft race, with unprecedented carnage nearly every raft which entered flipped at some point down the river! We were in 3rd position coming up to the waterfall behind the NZ Men’s team and the team from River Rats Rafting. All 3 boats flipped and we managed to overtake the River Rats crew by getting our boat upright at a much faster pace. So in the end we finished in 2nd place behind the NZ men’s team which wasn’t too bad considering that they were recently crowned fastest team IN THE WORLD on that stretch of river.
Sam and Rob going for the carnage award.
Every year a special carnage trophy is handed out to the person or team who create the most epic/memorable carnage during the race. The carnage trophy used to belong to Andy Duff himself so in a way it is the best award. This year the award went to Mike Hudson (the guy with a red helmet in the photo above) who attempted the sledge race for the first time and had some epic downtime underneath the waterfall. Also see below the winner’s of last year’s carnage award.
Also a big kia ora to Douglas McCormick for the photos and for organising the race, thanks Douglas!
Yes, I know World Championships were months ago, apologies but I feel its worth mentioning some things, especially now that I have had plenty of time to reflect on the experience as a whole. I have not represented Ireland in any other sports before so this was a unique and really cool experience for me. I believe in the old proverb that pictures (with captions :)) tell a thousand words. So after you scroll through my favourite photos that summarise our trip maybe you’ll be ready to read some more ramblings about what the World Championships are really about and who made it all possible for us. (Photos predominantly by David O’Sullivan and Barry Loughnane)
I started my trip at my home away from home, RiverRun Rafting in the Ottawa Valley
Clay, Coach Dave and Flo-Dog made fantastic travel buddies for the long journey south
Although I did have a favourite…
Highways cut through the stunning scenery of North Carolina, not what we were expecting from south-eastern USA
Arriving at the NOC and deciding to take the cheap option a little way off the beaten track…
Fun times! food always tastes better from an open fire!
Team mates begin to arrive and the local culture is sampled…
Very well sampled…
Oh wait we did lots of training too :)
Shane Little KJM loving his new Palm gear! Coach Dave was always on hand to give us video feedback during our training sessions. Legend!
Patriotism for the flag grew stronger as the competition day advanced
We found ways to relax in the days before the competition, it wasn’t hard in paradise!
Opening Ceremony was a blast! The whole town of Bryson turned out to see us march!
We even had a team mascot! Team GB and Palm paddler Bren Orton
Training was heating up and we kept each other focused on hitting the rides we had visualized in our heads
Competition day, there was a real togetherness within this group and you could feel that everybody on the team even though they were your competitors, wanted you to do really well. We supported each other shamelessly
Staying focused for my rides
The Dagger Jitsu dishing me out some nice air
Happy with my rides and pointing to the stand where my team mates were cheering, their support helped me greatly. (Photo by Pringle)
My rides at world championships earned me 37th position which I was pretty content with for my first major competition but being at worlds also showed me the standard of the top athletes, even to break into the top 20 would take an incredible amount of commitment and training. I hope I can continue to push on in the right direction. However more important then the competition for me was the people I was there with. There was definitely no team that spent as much time together as a group helping each other and having the ‘craic’ then the Irish team, we are all great friends and that was what made it such a great experience for all of us. We also got on great with many members of the other international teams and I know personally I made about 10 promises to visit people in different countries to go and paddle with them soon! That is for me what the world championships are all about.
I would firstly like to thank my parents who went along with what they didn’t understand in me for a long time, their support was the reason I was able to compete in NOC this year. Now they know more and are beginning to understand why I love paddling as much as I do. After that Roger McClure our team manager did an unreal job organising and keeping us all in line with a smile on his face, definitely one of the lads! Shane Cronin, owner of progressive distribution helped me a lot in getting me kitted out with Palm equipment, Dagger kayaks and AT paddles, this top of the range equipment has definitely brought my paddling up a level. Snowy Robertson and Chris Gragtmans from Dagger kayaks who are legends of the highest order. Lastly but not least I would like to thank the Irish Freestyle committee and Canoeing Ireland whose financial support was definitely needed and very much appreciated. Freestyle kayaking is on the up in Ireland this will be shown by the fierce competition for places on the European Championships team this year.
Since being back in Ireland I have taken up residence in the University of Limerick which is a great base to keep paddling and progressing. I’m also ecstatic that our plans to keep the Irish Whitewater Race League going for a second year have come to fruition. With the first of 6 races kicking off at the unmissable New Years paddler festival in Kerry, its a great time to be a kayaker in Ireland.
GalwayFest 2014 is also on the weekend of the 1st and 2nd of March. It emerged as the aftermath of too much talking by myself and Barry Loughnane in a pub in the small town of Buncrana in 2011 and is now an event going from strength to strength, we are hoping to accommodate more then the 110 racers we had last year when we bring it back for its 3rd year on the trot.
Poster from GalwayFest 2013
Anyways I’ll leave you with a couple of preview edits of our first two scheduled races for the Irish Whitewater Race League 2014.
A glorious Autumn morning welcomed 140 competitors to Hurley
The Hurley Classic has been running for 24 years now, it’s one of freestyle’s most iconic events held in europe and best of all it’s held on a feature worthy of it’s reputation.
Hurley itself is a dynamic wave/ hole where all moves are possible, not always that easy to land but spectacular definitely. Jacko the event organiser has put a lot of work in this last few years to grow the event getting more and more top paddlers from around the World to come over and see if they can steal the classic crown from the locals!
This time Jacko excelled himself with nearly all of europe’s top paddlers coming over and even Stephen Wright from America.
The main idea is to unite the Uk paddling community with the rest of the ww community from around the World for an exciting, fun end of season showdown on an exciting feature to see who can provide the best spectacle.
This year we had quite a few events going on such as the Saturday GB team selection & night time super final, the epic boatercross, the Palm pin up photo contest and of course the main event the Classic on the Sunday. Jacko even threw a delicious banquet in the massive heated tent by the wave for all the competitors!
GB Selection
The saturday was for most people a warm up comp for the Sunday classic, but for the few who are trying to make the team to compete at the Europeans it was serious Because it’s a selection event for a hole contest, we were restricted during the heats to only use the hole gate which made for a very very tricky contest.
Best of the Brits was Palm/ Gb’s Alan Ward who battled his way to 3rd place in an extremely tough final showing the best of what the Thames Valley can produce. 2nd went to my Dagger team mate Tomasz Czaplicki and 1st with incredible rides was the french powerhouse Sebastian Devred with a incredible last ride !
Alan Ward
Tomasz Czaplicki – Poland
Sebastian Devred – France
In the women’s frances slalom superstar Nouria Newman won the super-final showing amazing adaptability and Palm’s Katya came in 4th.
This years boatercross was amped up a notch with an even bigger & steeper launch ramp followed by paddling around a marked out course across the flow of the wave whilst Rob Harris shot at you with a water canon then back again around the other buoy before a sprint to the finish all the while the two kayakers in body armour called ”8 Ballers” tried to stop you in your tracks.
In the men’s Palm’s Alan Ward added another great performance to steal the win ahead of Austria’s Marcel Bloder and Slovakia’s Peter Csonka after 5 gruelling rounds.
In the women’s there were no surprises as France’s Nouria Newman easily sailed to victory! ahead of Palm’s Anne Hübner, & Gb’s Paula Volkmer (not 100% on the womens 2nd & 3rd, so please correct me if i’m wrong.)
Nouria with her 1st place boater cross £!
Classic
In the classic you get 20 minutes with 10 people getting as many rides as they can. The aim is to do as many different moves as possible. The top 5 go though to a final with the full 3 gates open (it was on 2 for the rest of the weekend) to get 3 45 second rides with your best one counting to decide the winner.
GB’s top performers were Palm’s star performer Alan Ward who just missed the final in 6th followed by Doug Cooper and Palm’s Bren Orton.
For the super-final the lock keeper opened up the weir to give us a perfect retentive 3 gates which let us really see what some of the World’s best could do. It was very close as everyone had amazing rides but in the end Stephen Wright of the USA took the win with moves i’ve never seen stuck before on Hurley (pistol flips on demand), 2nd went to Spain’s Euro champ Quim Fontane Maso and 3rd to Frances Mathieu Dumoulin.
Quim Fontane Maso – Catalonia
Alan Ward – GB
Sebastian Devred – France
Mathieu Dumoulin – France
Event winner Stephen Wright – USA
Men’s Classic Podoum: Stephen 1st, Quim 2nd, Mathieu 3rd
In the women’s GB’s Claire O’hara had the ride of her life to take the win ahead of Slovakia’s NIna Csonkova in 2nd and Frances Marlene Devillez in 3rd.
A big thank you must go to Jacko and all the volunteers who organised and ran the event, it was a true showcase of the top of our sport uniting all ages, sexes and abilities in a common love of kayaking! It was amazing having so much talent come over to the UK just for one event and I think everyone left feeling that it was a fun trip. Next year is the 25th edition so it’ll be a big one so you’d better get preparing for it
Event organiser Jacko closing the classic.
Palm’s Anne Hübner gives us her thoughts on the Classic:
Palm’s Anne Hübner’s impressions
It was my first time going to England for a kayak event. Usually before a kayak trip everybody is jealous but not this time. I got told about the bad and cold weather I will find in the UK and so on. And finally everybody was right – the weather during the event was cold and grey and the wave was only on two gates which wasn’t my favourite. Anyway, friday offered a beautiful sunny autumn-day and I got an awesome session on friday on three gates which was already worth to fly over. Great to see so much enthusiasm for Freestyle Kayaking in the UK and thanks to everybody who helped to make the Hurley Classic such a great event!”
Alan Ward
A few words from Local hero, Palm’s Alan Ward:
The SAS Hurley Classic was an incredible event with competitors coming from all over the world to invade a quiet and unsuspecting rural village in Berkshire at the weekend. Every year the organisers (Jacko and friends) step the competition up a notch, which included an incredible 8 ball boaterX competition, a huge heated marquee and the biggest banquet to date.
Most of the top ten men and women in the world competed over the weekend for the coveted title of SAS Hurley Classic Champion and the show did not disappoint with two floodlit finals and breathtaking heats all weekend on a variety of different gate set ups.
It’s one of the oldest competitions in freestyle kayaking and next year celebrates its 25th year, so with our help may the SAS Hurley Classic grow and grow!
Many thanks to Jacko and the team,
See you next year,
Pringle
See if you can find yourself in our photo dump below
Tomorrow we are one step closer towards kicking off the 2013 World Champs as the 8 days of official nations training begins.
Yesterday was chance for everyone to have some fun in aid of a good cause at the NOC Pro-Am WorldKayak throw down. All to raise money for the First’s Descents programme. (A kayaking based cancer charity that takes cancer survivors out kayaking to help them re-build their lives).
The idea is that two amateurs (usually kids) join up with one ‘Pro’, the pro coaches the kids in the morning and then we all compete in the afternoon. Each team member get’s two rides, then the average is worked out based on all the team members runs. It was all a bit of fun but so close to Worlds it was a good chance to see how we’re all stacking up in competition so far, with Dane Jackson, Bren Orton, EJ & Nick Troutman all leading teams.
I was fortunate to get two great young paddlers, 11-year-old Isaac Hull & 16 year old Kenya Ingram. Both could already throw down some great loops, cartwheels and splits and were working on mc’nasties. In Isaac’s practice run he impressed everyone with a textbook paddle throw loop and then followed it up with a paddle-less backloop…. I think Junior’s are just getting better and better. I certainly couldn’t do the things they were doing at their age.
It was nice to paddle together, see if we could improve and cheer each other & everyone’s teams on. A real good atmosphere. I just went in and had a good time throwing the moves I liked to do and the kids did the same, so we came away as the top placed team in 1st position Hopefully it’s a good omen of things to come in 14 days time….
After the comp was the prize giving and a silent auction to raise even more money for First Descents. It was really good being out on the water, having fun with good people in aid of something worthwhile. Thanks everyone for such a good day especially Isaac & Kenya, you guys rock!
Now we have just 12 days until men’s prelims & 13 days until Women’s prelims, I’m feeling really good, my comp rides keep getting better and better and I feel like I’m just enjoying myself trying to see just what I can do in a ride here. I’ve grown to really love the hole here. Katya is similarly stepping it up with her Phonic’s & Mc’nasties getting more and more consistent so both of us are just really enjoying our paddling. Now almost everyone is here and team training kicks off tomorrow so we’ll be able to really see who’s doing what so will update you soon on the continued progression of all the top kayakers ripping it up out here
Double Drop at the Start of the race course on the Ayasse
This year’s edition of the Italian Eporedia Active Days in the beginning of June took place in the Ayasse valley and on the artificial race course in Ivrea. The newly found race course on a steep and demanding section of the Ayasse river offered enough water and so the competition went through with some interesting lines and even some swims. Compared to the former years less competitors took part but they got rewarded with a way better organisation of the event, an awesome dinner up in the small village Pontboset and four days of great summer weather in between the rainy European spring and early summer 2013.
Ayasse race course in Pontboset – “Corner Drop” in the back
During the day before the race on the Ayasse almost all the competitors showed up and went down the race section together to check out the lines. The competitors merged together to an awesome crew on the river, paddling together and working out the lines during the training. So in contrast to the usual individual training before a white water competition where everybody is just doing his own laps down the race course this time the training day turned into a fun paddling day on the river with a big group of some of worlds best kayakers.
happy to get a fast line through the first Double Drop
The individual- and team-race race course started with a technical Double Drop in the beginning, followed by some class III. Next difficulty was the “Corner Drop” with a sticky hole in the end, which claimed most of the swims during the competition followed by a 3 meter drop also with a sticky hole at the bottom. Next few hundred meters offered some easier white water before the last beautiful drop under a romaine bridge leaded into the finish pool. The King of the Falls section involved a difficult entry rapid and ended with a 70m long slide, so spectators were well entertained.
King of the Falls – Final Slide
Summing up the race-course on the Ayasse was definitely the hardest race-course I have ever competed on.
right after the start, entering the first drop of the “Double Drop”
But once the competition side moved from the Ayasse valley to the town of Ivrea it didn´t get much easier. Spectators got to see some hard battles. During the slalom race only 8 competitors managed to pass all the gates in both runs and in the end the fight in the Boater X decided about the overall win.
Slalom Race – town of Ivrea in the back
After four incredible days with the best competitors crew ever, no injuries (except the Russian who ended as a victim in our international rugby game the other night and got a stitched eyebrow) the new King of the Falls (Sam Sutton), Kayak Freeride World championships by Nations (New Zealand) and the overall winners (Jamie Sutton and myself) have been honoured in the “Stadio della Canoa” in the Piedmont town of Ivrea.
girls team checking the line on the entry double drop
Check back for all results here: http://www.eporediaactivedays.com/en/sports/kayak/results
Our journey to Lienz in Austria had quite an urgent start. We’d been training in Plattling, Germany. There is free camping all along the riverbank in the nature reserve there, the water level was high but not too bad but in the night whilst we’d been sleeping the level had risen dramatically as storms across Germany had thrown down heavy rain.
We awoke to find the bridge off the big island where we were parked completely covered with water, at this point it was only slightly too high to drive the van through. Normally police & officials come when a flood is coming to warn all campers to leave before they open the dam upstream. This time however even they got caught unawares as the whole construction site for building a new bridge, cranes, containers, sand, wood, and portable toilets were all flooded and being washed away.
We were fine and since we had our kayaks we could get most of our stuff to the side but the van looked a bit doomed if the levels rose. Anyway it took a few hours for rescuers to arrive and with the level now nearly a meter deep over the bridge two huge trucks came to lift us out and rescue our little van. We made it (obviously) after a very exciting morning and thought that now would be a good time to head to the mountains of Lienz. As the news showed the week after, it was a good move as Germany had the biggest floods of this century!
Lienz is a beautiful mountain town in the Dolomites popular for cyclists, hikers, climbers & kayakers. It’s also been the site of numerous European competitions, this year they were holding a smaller event but it would still attract quite a few international paddlers coming to compete.
The hole used to be quite sticky but over the winter it looks as if the rocks have shifted creating a challenging flushy wavey hole. It’s difficult to do full rides here but moves go very big. It’s also very good training for Worlds here I think.
The competition started on the river Drau amidst glorious sunshine, with a jam session format for prelims and normal rides for finals.
In the womens final girls did better than I expected given the challenging nature of the hole and all got big loops and some other moves too, Nina Csonkova was 1st, Katya was 2nd and Lucie Horka was 3rd.
Katya with the biggest loop I’ve ever seen!
In the mens I was really fired up and have been treating all comps as warm ups for worlds so I was really wanting to give my best. So I did I won with 300 or 400 points difference, the first win for my new Carbon Dagger Jitsu! 2nd was Martin Koll from Germany who’d had very sick moves in prelims and 3rd was GBR’s Matt Cooke a very good friend who came out of retirement for the competition! It was great to paddle with Matt again in competition, as he was one of the paddlers I really looked up to when I was younger and who helped me loads in my progression as a freestyler.
Thomas Zimmerman the organiser & owner of the La Ola shop here really knows how to put on a good event. Even though it was a small rodeo, we had everything you could wish for. Sun, good friends, big moves, good prize money, free camping, free dinner & drinks all evening, it really made it one of the most fun events to be at. Organisers of World’s should copy this
The locals also showed us one other spectacle as many of them had climbed up all the nearby mountains to light fire beacons of crosses and Christian symbols in memory of the Austrian war with France from years ago which coincided with the prizegiving party so it all added to the great experience!
My new Carbon Jitsu is really flying, now I’ve got it all outfitted and am getting used to it, it’s just getting better and better, I couldn’t be happier with how it’s turned out, we’ll be finishing off the promo video for it in the next few weeks so keep a look out!
Video from my training & competition: http://youtu.be/uDO6JEzn_Wg
Last weekend I went to the North West of Russia to region called Kareliya, next to border with Finland. One of the best russian playspots is located here in the little rural villige of Tivdia. The region itself is beautiful, few people, untouched nature, clean rivers, lakes, waterfalls, white nights.
This is last years perfect flow – Tivdia wave at it’s best.
Photo: Mikhail Burov
Cows and dogs run free in the village, bears and wolfs run free in forests. Locals are friendly and offer you fresh milk, cheese, fish and banya(russian sauna). You can camp free wherever you like or rent a room in local wooden houses for 3-4euro/night. I love this feeling of peace and freedom you get here – far from big roads, cities, internet and shops. If you want to get some taste of russia but not ready to go deep (all the way to Caucasian mountains, Altai or Baykal regions) this is the place to go – you can even drive on your own car from europe (100km from Finland).
Photo: Артур Лепманис
Photo: Геннадий Соколов
Photo: Артур Лепманис
The wave itself is natural, so water levels are unpredictable, they depend on amount of snowmelt and speed of melting in spring. But for the whole of May and June you’re almost guaranteed to find something to surf.
Sometimes, when all conditions come together it can be an epic green wave with just the right amount of foam on top. There are eddies from both sides as well, to use right one you need a rope.
Russian freestylers come hunting the water every year, coming from 1st May till end of June on weekends and for a few weeks from all of western Russia (Moscow is 1100km away) and even further. For the last 2 years kayakers from Finland have been coming too.
This time the level was a little bit lower then perfect, but still provided a decent wave! The weather made up for the water. It was sunny 19 hours a day and in other 5 hours it was a beautiful sunset/sunrise (you get white nights here so sun never goes completely).
Foam pile was big, so you could do some hole moves. But wave tricks still worked. High speed and occasional pulse keep you on edge.
Competition this year was very interesting, i can proudly say – level of russian paddlers rising with each season. Organisers did a very good job providing very pleasant atmosphere, live music (band came and played for us in the middle of nowhere), a few less serious disciplines and party competitions, no entry fee and even prize money – first time as far as i remember russian freestyle competitions!
In fact organisation was so good, they were running earlier for the womens finals and i almost missed my rides as i was still changing as a result finished only 3rd after winning prelims. Will be smarter next time.
I very recommend this event for European paddlers to visit. You will see the other world, different parties, experience russian banya, food&nature, and of course people and relationships here not like in Europe too. Cheap flights now going to St. Petersburg (500km away) or Moscow, where you can jump in someones kayak bus or car. I will answer your questions about visa, it’s easy enough.
At the moment I am finished with all my selection events and going deep in to training for the Worlds with intention to participate in as many competition before US as possible.
Katya
Photo: Mikhail Burov
Photo: Mikhail Burov
Photo: Геннадий Соколов
Photo: Геннадий Соколов
Photo: Геннадий Соколов
Photo: Grigory Ergin
Photo: Артур Лепманис
Photo: Mikhail Burov
Photo: Mikhail Burov
Photo: Mikhail Burov
Photo: Геннадий Соколов
Photo: Геннадий Соколов
Photo: Геннадий Соколов
Ancient Russian device for boiling water. Called Samovar, still very useful in 21st Century
After arriving Monday night in the amazing little town 2445 m above sea level in the middle of Colorados Eagle County I had two awesome days getting ready for the steep creek competition at Homestake even higher up in the mountains. Having my first practice runs down the tricky steep section I quickly got an idea what it means to race in that altitude. Having nice practice runs I felt best prepared for the Steep Creek Championships on Thursday. My first run was pretty sweet till I entered the last pool, there I got turned around and went backwards over the last drop. Lucky me was able to roll and finish the first run at forth place. So the top five lady were supposed to do a second run – both counted. It was Adriene Levknecht (USA) in the lead with an incredible advance of seven seconds to the next placed Martina Wegman from the Netherlands and Nikki Kelly out of New Zealand. Trying to catch a place on the podium in the finals I didn´t really find into the race again and ended up forth. Adriene took home the 2000 dollars price money followed by Nikki and Martina. Lou Urwin from New Zealand was the only lady who did better in the second run than in the first but finally ended up fifth. Congrats to Adriene for her absolute superior time which would have placed her under the top 15 of the mens.
The first run of the mens class was dominated by Mike Dawson (NZL) beating the time of second placed Honza Lasko by three seconds followed by Jakub Nemec in third position, both from the Czech Republic.The mens kept fighting hard in the finals and the spectators got to see sweet lines as well as good carnage down the last drop “leap of faith”. In the end the top three didn´t give any chance to the following crowd and there was a almost unbelievable finish were both Honza and Mike ended up with exactly the same time after two runs. So they shared the first place at the podium and split the price money – Jakub stayed in third position and sent off Michele Ramazza (Italy) and Sam Sutton (NZL) to the places four and five.
Team Palm paddler James”Pringle” Bebbington had a hard time in the strong mens competitors field and ended up 31th.
Having a fun day out there yesterday, got to see smooth lines, hard crashes and carnage I´m excited about todays Freestyle competition in the heart of Vail.
Because it’s a selection event for a hole contest, we were restricted during the heats to only use the hole gate which made for a very very tricky contest.
Hopefully it’s a good omen of things to come in 14 days time….
