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.
This last weekend the Plattling Eurocup Freestyle took place under some extremely stormy skies. Ever changing water levels and tough conditions meant lots of ups, downs, success’s and upsets for the competitors.
All together this made for an exciting and fun event to be a part of.
Myself I was one of very few plastic boats competing in a sea of Carbon, so it really goes to show how good the Jitsu is that I ended up in 3rd place, ironically 1st was also won in a plastic boat by the new German Champion Paul Meylahn.
In the womens Palm’s Katya (my wife paddled really well to take 3rd spot also. Not much separated the top 5 paddlers in either mens, or womens, due to the tough water level. However GB’s Claire O’hara came out in 1st of the ladies.
Palm’s Anne Hübner was doing really well earlier in the comp, even winning Semi’s with an impressive score but just fell short in the finals.
Below are my day to day updates for more on how the event unfolded.
Friday Prelims:
Mens & Womens Prelims are all done. Weather has made for some challenging high & changing levels meaning a few upsets and surprises.Both me & Katya survived to reach Semi’s. I had a horrible first ride then a good 2nd one that saved me.My Dagger Jitsu was the only plastic boat to make the top 10…:-) Tomasz Czaplicki had great rides to place 1st in Mens, Nina Csonkova placed 1st in Womens.
Saturday Semi Finals:
It’s been long day here, rain, rain and more rain, hard water levels but girls kayaked very good…. Palm’s Katya Kulkova made Finals in 4th with a good score of 353, Palm’s Anne Hübner got an impressive 1st with 450, GB’s Claire O’hara also made it in 2nd with 390.
In mens we seemed to struggle more than girls Scores were lower than prelims, the best one was GB’s James Weight in 1st with 626, 2nd Ryan Liquorish with 610 and me in 3rd with 550. Bartosz Czauderna got 4th and Paul Meylahn 5th.
Many paddlers were very close to making the cut, there wasn’t much between us really, feel very lucky to be in the final with such inconsistant levels.
Sunday Finals:
The Plattling Eurocup is all over. incredibly tough water levels today made for a very tough final.
Mens was desevedly won with a great ride for the level of 600 points by Paul Meylahn from Germany, 2nd was Bartosz Czauderna 3rd was me Less than 100 points (one move) separated the top 3.
Womens was won by GB’s Claire O’hara with 276, 2nd was Nina Csonkova with 206, and 3rd my lovely wife Katya Kulkova with 190, all paddled very well considering the difficulty of the hole at this level.German paddlers did very well winning all but 2 categories…
Congrats all winners and those who came close and a big thanks to all the organisers!
What’s up next?
Now though it’s back to training hard, and luckily for me just after the event finished my secret weapon arrived from Dagger….a Carbon Jitsu!!! No more competing in plastic now. I love the Jitsu shape and have been amazed how well the plastic version has paddled. Last night I took my Carbon one for it’s first spin.
It’s the best kayak I’ve ever used by a long way, I think it’s going to be winning a lot of medals this year, it;s simply incredible. Stand by for a little teaser and promo over the next month
This last year Dagger have been developing their new Playboat the Jitsu.
The project’s aim was to put Dagger back on top at the forefront of freestyle with a high performance, incredibly precise, super loose and fast playboat that would go big, feel great and stay true to Dagger’s roots.
Snowy Dagger’s designer exceeded all my expectations…A kayak I’m proud to have been involved in creating.
This time last year I got to try the first prototype just before Kanumesse at Plattling, it looked really promising but had a lot of work still needed.
Myself along with Rush Sturges, Ben Marr, Andrew Holcombe and Chris Gragtsmans were all involved in giving Snowy our ideas. Then we tested the prototypes ruthlessly and gave our feedback from our experiences on waves and holes all over the world.
I ended up using it in the World Cup series just gone and even with a broken collar bone I still came 7th…so I’m really looking forward to fighting to retain my title at next years Worlds when I’m fit again, trained up and in a boat I feel I can really excel in.
So what do I like about it? Its slicy and precise, so you have loads of control over what the boat does, and you can predict how it will react. It initiates very easily and with much greater control than most of the current playboats. It’s fast and loose, actually one of the fastest boatsI’ve ever paddled, which means you can get it higher in the air and surf much greener waves than you could in other boats. The release off a wave is awesome, and with the volume pocket in the centre it pops really big in a hole too. Pretty much it’s turned out to be a dream playboat for me, it feels incredible to paddle and I’m really enthused by how it’s turned out.
Here’s the video from paddle expo with me and Snowy going over the boat and it’s features along with some actual footage of it in action:
What makes it so great?
A super fast hull, with a great release edge and flared side walls to shoot down the wave and launch.
Sharp precise edges for release, perfect control, precision and predictability.
Contrary to the belief of round dull edges meaning forgiveness a sharp edge on the boat means you can predict exactly how and when the boat will react to certain movements and situations, you just need to spend a few hours paddling it to learn the hull and then your off.
Centralised volume with slicy ends for big pop, smooth initiation and balanced cartwheel based moves in a hole. Being relatively narrow also means it’s much easier to get over the edge to drive it where you want.
It weighs just 14kg. Less weight means more air and less stress on your body. It also has the hull stiffener welded in which means no slippage from the outfitting and an super stiff hull. This means whatever energy you put into a move comes out = more air and faster rotations.
New Contour Ergo outfitting makes it a 2minute job to get the boat setup perfectly with no glue or tools necessary.
Raise the seat with the included foam that just slides under the liner.
Quickly unclip the hip pads insert the required amount of foam shims and clip back in.
Get in ratchet the back band up and you’re ready to go!
You can move the seat one handed whilst still sat in it!
Raise your legs up to hold yourself into the boat with the new innovation from Dagger the ratchet leg lifter. Simple and incredibly effective.
Want to see more: Here is Rush’s Clip of the prototypes in action:
The 5.9, the mid size will be available shortly with the small and large size coming out a little later. So go have a try when they come in, I think you guys are going to love them.
Straight after the Rock Island we were straightaway on the road for 3 hours to Pigeon river, the site of the 2nd event in this years World Cup.
The hole, built by hand is actually one of the best features I’ve paddled in.
Wit only one day before the event started there wasn’t supposed to be any water, but a surprise afternoon release meant that we were able to practice. I managed 1 ride, liked the hole, it seemed very straightforward so got off so I didn’t strain my collarbone too much.
Yesterday was the first day of competition here, with the Men’s Prelims. With such an easy feature rides were always going to be high.
Notably Dane Jackson scored a 1340 in his first ride and a 1000+ in his 2nd, looking likely that he’d be hard to beat, but then Peter Csonka winner of the first World Cup stepped up once again with a 1430 first ride and a 1158 second ride.
I was in one of the last heats to go and feeling better and better everyday really wanted to get good rides. I can’t push or pull very hard off my right side so just tried to keep smooth and easy so not to need much effort. I had a great first ride and similar second ride getting most of what I was aiming for.
Really really happy to feel a bit more myself and very pleased with how the new Dagger Jitsu play boat is performing for me.
In the end of the day I ended up 4th, Quim from Catalonia 3rd, Dane 2nd and Peter 1st. So another great showing from the Europeans with most of us getting through to the cut of top 20.
Looks set for an interesting battle over the coming days; I hope I can step up to battle with Dane, Quim and Peter…
Men’s Prelims Results below: -
Rank Name Country Run 1 Run 2 Final Score
1 Peter Csonka #161 SVK 1430 1158 2588
2 Dane Jackson #172 USA 1340 1136 2476
3 Joaquim Fontane #194 ESP 1006 936 1942
4 James Bebbington #74 GBR 940 870 1810
5 Nick Troutman #45 CAN 776 983 1759
6 Tomasz Czaplicki #191 POL 1023 653 1676
7 Martin Koll #7 DEU 803 870 1673
8 Bartosz Czauderna #190 POL 846 720 1566
9 Stephan Wright #157 USA 846 708 1554
10 Tomas Andrassy #167 SVK 790 686 1476
11 Michael Patterson #160 USA 703 713 1416
12 Clay Wright #169 USA 525 866 1391
13 Bryan Kirk #63 USA 560 686 1246
14 Abel Thevenet #2 FRA 766 451 1217
15 Eric Jackson #80 USA 670 536 1206
16 David Wild #189 GBR 640 560 1200
17 Kazuya Matsungaga #94 JPN 501 598 1099
18 Adam Chappell #193 CAN 363 716 1079
19 Marcel Bloder #33 AUT 505 526 1031
20 Craig Kleckner #187 USA 580 430 1010
21 Matt Anger #105 USA 521 486 1007
22 Thim Bernard #91 FRA 426 506 932
23 Thomas Dunphy #8 IRL 351 376 727
24 Andrey Pesterev #14 RUS 390 316 706
Women and Junior Men prelims are on today so will have more soon from the Pigeon
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.
Last week I was running a FlowFree Playboating Development Week in Lyon. We had lots of fun and managed to catch Hawaii-sur-Rhone in good conditions as well as a couple of local slalom courses. Here’s a couple of pics from the week:
I’m now out in the French Alps running more coaching & guiding trips with some awesome levels. Next, I’ll be heading up to Norway for Voss Festival before flying out to Uganda for month of both guiding and play time! Hopefully see you on the water somewhere.
Last Saturday was the Youth Freestyle event on the Washburn River in Yorkshire. Check out the video above that me and Palms Junior star Bren Orton filmed and edited together to see what it was all about.
Its a great series of events for young paddlers of all abilities with the main aim of getting on the water having fun, getting top quality coaching and then doing some fun competitions. I’ve been at 3 YF events now and they have all been great days out showcasing an amazing array of talented young paddlers coming up in the Uk kayak scene. It looks to me like the future of British kayaking is in a very healthy condition.
On the way back to Germany to the site of the 2011 World Champs in Plattling now but here’s a little wrap up of my trip to compete in my first Teva Games in Vail, Colorado.
The first kayak event that was held was the Steep Creek Championship to be held on the Homestake Creek. Anne wrote quite a but about that already on the post below but here’s my personal little take on it.
Its a pretty beautiful area with mountains all around and a very different landscape to anywhere I’ve been before!
I arrived the day before the event started so got to take a few practice runs down. The creek is really rocky & bony but pretty fun to paddle. My main issue was getting the line on the last drop, Leap of Faith. I had two nice lines down it and 2 bad ones in practice. The other thing I noticed was that due to the alltiude here (10,000 feet) you get tired really quickly,, pretty crazy.
In the race the field cut to 22 after the first run with the remaining competitiors getting a second run to sort out the final results. I went pretty hard in the beginning and had quite good lines on the upper section although did get caught up on a few rocks and lost some time there, but i was quite happy anyways until i reached the last drop and screwed up my line. Got backlooped in the drop then stuck up against the wall upside down, took me a good 10 seconds to get back up and get to the finish….
Not the best run for sure, I finished up in 33rd, think i have a quite a bit to learn in creek racing. Mike Dawson were pretty incredible though getting great smooth lines and incredibly managed to tie for top spot down to the hundredth of a second!!!
The results were:-
1st:- Mike Dawson & Honza Lasko
3rd:- Jakub Nemec
Ladies:-
1st:- Adriene Levknect
2nd:-Nikki Kelly
3rd:-Martina Wegman
and Palm’s Anne Hubner in 4th
The next event was the Freestyle Kayak held in the hole at International Bridge.
The feature was good but a little shallow and tricky to set up.
In the qualifying round the field cut to the top 15. I had pretty good rides, did miss a couple moves but was pretty happy wit how it went finishing up in 4th position. Stephen Wright took 1st spot with some huge Loops and Godzilla’s.
The following day were the semi’s in the morning and finals in the evening.
In the semi’s you need to make the top 5 to get in the finals. I felt pretty good, dropping into my run. Had a really good start getting my entry move, both Mc’nasties, both Fonix’s and then went to go do Loops and Godzillas but couldn’t get the pop for it. Still was pretty sure I’d done plenty to make finals so in my second run, i stupidly took it pretty easy to save energy for later.
Results came out and i was sitting down in 8th, in my mind from scoring the video I’ve seen of my ride i came in 3rd… But judging is done in real time, without the benefit of video so mistakes do happen time to time, so just learn my lesson to never take it easy in a ride and move on to my next target, Worlds!
For those that want to check out the 60 second ride judges gave me 590 when it should have been scored 750 at least see:- https://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=10150200452045949&oid=319949401906&comments
Finals were really well fought out however with some great kayaking getting thrown down. First was Dustin Urban with some really nice smooth paddling to beat out Ej who got 2nd with Dane in 3rd.
Womens were 1st Emily Jackson, 2nd Ruth Ebens and 3rd Hayley Mills.
Then the last event was the 8 Ball Kayak which is basically a head to head 6 at a time race down the easy stretch above the freestyle hole to under the bridge with one little twist. The 8ballers, a bunch of kayakers, rafters & SUP’ers whose job it is to take out the racers. i decided not to take part in this one with Worlds being so close, i didn’t want to get hurt but it looked awesome, super carnage!
1st was Mike Dawson, 2nd brendan Bayly and 3rd David Fussili.
Womens 1st was Nicole Mansfield, 2nd Louise Urwin and 3rd Emily Jackson.
Was a really cool competition for sure but now its on to Plattling to get ready for Worlds.
NSR 2010 went off this weekend, and was a huge success all round. Just under 700 competitors and almost 1000 people in all turned up to party and paddle, including guests Rush Sturges and Tyler Bradt, who premiered their new movie ‘Dream Result’ at Saturday night’s party.
The usual mens and women’s competitions ran, as well as c1, squirt, duo, and new for this year the sofa cross, in which 40 teams of 2 raced down the course on inflatable sofas.
Also new to the NSR this year was the entertainment provided by the Rodeo Rabbit who did sterling work all day, and led an epic musical statue dance off before the prize giving.
A huge shout out goes to Andy, Peter, and everybody else at Leeds Uni who put in a huge amount of work to make this event so good.
More photos and a full report coming soon, but for now here’s a short video clip for your enjoyment…
paddled really well to take 3rd spot also. Not much separated the top 5 paddlers in either mens, or womens, due to the tough water level. However GB’s Claire O’hara came out in 1st of the ladies.
Less than 100 points (one move) separated the top 3.
