This was the toughest day of the event for the men with both Quarterfinals and Semi finals in the same day.
It was tough to make top 10, the cut was about 1800 for 2 rides, which is much higher than Worlds was 1 year ago…but for the top 5 it was even harder. We have pretty much all the same competitors as in Worlds but now Dane and Quim are seniors too. Also Tomas Andrassy from Slovakia, Bartosz and Tomasz from Poland have all became a very strong competitors and are paddling on a top level too.
There are now more than 5 paddlers capable of pulling off an over 1000points ride here.
The hardest thing for me is balancing between scoring a good ride but not pushing too hard on my broken bone 
I came in 8th in the morning, feeling very pleased to make the semi finals. Peter just stole the top spot from Dane again closely followed by Quim.
In the Semi finals we all knew it was going to be a ride of over a 1000 needed at least to make Finals. This time Dane had one of the sickest rides I’ve ever seen (1350) to get 1st ahead of Peter who was 2nd, Quim 3rd, Stephen 4th and myself 5th with 1066points!!!
European contingent is looking strong, with 3 paddlers making the finals. Now its one day off to recover and rest before its time to really throw down properly on Saturday 
Results: - http://www.freestylekayaking2013.com/pdfs/results/MensSemiFinalsResultsPigeon.pdf
In the Junior Men’s, Bren had rides in prelims that would have put him 3rd in the Men’s and almost two times ahead of the other Juniors… he looked on fire, getting two trophy moves in his ride even.
Today he was up again in the Semi’s and as expected easily won with 1053 in one ride with USA’s Hunter Katich going very big to get 700points and 2nd place. Also making the finals was GBR’s Brandon Hepburn in 4th place.
Results: - http://www.freestylekayaking2013.com/pdfs/results/JuniorMensK1semiResultsPigeon.pdf
In the Women’s Prelims Katya did very good making the cut for the Semi finals. Claire O’Hara from GBR got 1st in the prelims followed by Ruth Gordon, Nina Csonkova and Emily Jackson.
Results:- http://www.freestylekayaking2013.com/pdfs/results/WomensK1prelimResultsPigeon.pdf
Semi Finals was today and Claire O’hara was looking strong, taking the 1st place again! Katya did very good rides with Entry moves, Phonics and a Loops, everyone was pretty sure she would make the cut but judges thought differently so she ended up 7th missing the cut by 30 points.
Results: - http://www.freestylekayaking2013.com/pdfs/results/WomensK1SemiResultsPigeon.pdf
We’re both happy with how we did today and ready for a rest day tomorrow, as it’s no water releasing. It’s such a good feature here, one of the best holes we’ve ever paddled, finals should be very interesting. I’m really hoping to recover a bit and be able to show my best.
Finals TV will be streamed live from:- http://www.ustream.tv/channel/h2o
Pringle
So the first event of the 2012 World Cup has just finished here in the USA.
The feature in Rock Island was very very tough and no one had much time on the water to practice, which meant quite a lot of surprises from the favourites and some unexpected successes for others.
From the beginning this World Cup it was going to be a battle between the Europeans and the North Americans. For this play spot in Rock Island the Jackson group were definitely favourites with this being their home spot.
They were very consistent in practice, you can see that they know this feature better than anyone else even this level is very unusual for them.
For myself it’s only been 3 weeks since I broke my Collarbone so my biggest hope was that I could compete at all, I knew I probably wasn’t likely to be at the top but I did manage to get a few moves and was very happy to make it to Quarter Finals and finish 17th.
Everything was going smoothly for the North Americans until today when things didn’t go to their plan. In the men’s Semi Finals, Nick Troutman just missed the cut for top 5 after winning the previous two rounds. Then European Junior Girls took the first two places in their final with Nuria from Spain winning.
In Women’s the unpredictable nature of the feature claimed Claire O’Hara current World Champion and Ruth Gordon Ebens former World Champion as casualties in the semis so it was only Nina Csonkova left from the European team in the Final. She got 2nd having pretty consistent rides but no one could really compete with Emily Jackson here who had impressive rides every time to take the Win.
Watching the men’s finals was a real pleasure with the Europeans really getting behind Quim and Peter. For quite a while Quim from Spain was leading with a score over 600 but Dane and EJ was going very hard, with Dane finally taking the lead from Quim with 750points. It looked like this result would stick until Peters last ride when he put himself together and really showed his skill and control to get a 900+point ride.
The sudden change in the European crowds mood was lifted to the sky as we almost lost hope of a win here until Peter last ride. Dane was last to go and had looked on fire here, he knew Peters score and must have felt under pressure. He flushed early in his last ride, this feature isn’t quite retainable, the paddle back up takes 20 seconds so he didn’t have time to really recover when he got back in the hole.
This meant of course that here on the Jackson’s home spot the European teams hero of the moment Peter Csonka took the win with Dane 2nd and Quim 3rd. Gold and Bronze goes to Europe, for us it doesn’t really matter who wins this World Cup, it matters where he’s from. I really want the Europeans to continue to show what we’re capable of here. Hopefully I will be in shape for the last event in 2 weeks time.
For now Congratulations to Peter! We all felt like we’d shared a part of this victory, it was very well deserved.
The Pigeon river World Cup starts in two days, probably without any practice but is much more retentive and consistent apparently, it might all be a different story.
Pringle
