I’ve been living in Nottingham this last month or so getting ready for GB team selection. It’s a paradise for hole kayaking and a perfect place to learn, develop & innovate.
This is the video we made exploring what’s possible there & my approach to freestyle. How to enjoy it and succeed.
I hope you like the film,
Pringle
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.
Nouria Newman – France
Katya Kulkova – Russia
Full Results from the Selection (but not the super final) - http://gbfreestylekayak.com/etive/?p=440
Boatercross
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.
Claire Ohara 1st, Nina Csonkova 2nd, Marlene Devillez 3rd
Finals Results: https://www.thamescanoes.com/classic/assets/2013/2013results-Finals.pdf
Mens Results: https://www.thamescanoes.com/classic/assets/2013/2013results-SeniorProMen.pdf
Women’s Results: https://www.thamescanoes.com/classic/assets/2013/2013results-SeniorProLadies.pdf
All info/ Photos: https://www.facebook.com/SasHurleyClassic?fref=ts
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
This year we discovered a new place we love to paddle & train – La Pilastra in the city of Salt Catalonia. It’s a small playspot hidden away in the city 10 mins from the beautiful Girona it’s a ideal place to paddle and stay.
European Mens champion Quim invited us here to his home spot earlier in the year and we really enjoyed the hole, the place & the people so we were excited to be invited to the Salt Kayak Festival this last weekend.
The competition attracted most of Europe’s top freestylers & even some of the top creek racers so the level was as expected very high.
The first event to go was the boatercross, involving paddling in a course around various buoys, having to complete 3 rolls, then getting out half way, running up to the top of a ramp and launching in ready to sprint the last 100m to the finish. It’s on a very easy grade 2 stretch but made interesting by the obstacles & challenges thrown in.
In the men’s it was a very close battle between Gerd Serrasolses ESP & Eric Deguil FRA but in the final David Pierron of france squeezed his way inbetween them to take 2nd. Gerd took 1st with a healthy lead and Eric 3rd.
The women’s boatercross looked like an even more aggressive fight than the men’s, but in the final Alicia Casas Zaragoza took the win by a long way followed by Nuria Fontane Maso 2nd, Pauline Sourrouille 3rd and Katya 4th.
Both Alicia & Gerd used the re-released Dagger RPM, looked to be awesome for this kind of racing.
The main event though was the Freestyle: Salt is the spot of one of the World Cup events next year so most of us were keen to get a feel for competing here. It’s also Quim’s home spot so everyone knew it would be hard to better his rides here. The hole is really good, not super easy but fun to paddle.
The prelims you had 4 rides of 30 seconds with the varety of all moves in all rides added together (1 move only scores once in all your rides). This was actually really refreshing, you got to show everything you could do. Quim took 1st, me 2nd and Sebastian Devred 3rd.
In the semi final I had a great ride even getting one of my trophy moves in at the end to take the win, Mathieu Dumoulin was 2nd, Sebastian 3rd.
Finals was very closely fought round, watching it was hard to tell who would be where, it looked like it’d come down to whichever style they were judging. I had good rides but think I used my best a round too early to come 4th. Quim took the win, Mathieu 2nd and Sebastian 3rd.
In the women’s prelims katya killed it to score 755 & the top spot!! She just goes so big and nice, it’s beautiful watching her paddle when she’s flying! Nuria Fontane Maso was 2nd and France’s Pauline was 3rd.
In the finals Nuria took the win with a solid performance, 2nd was Pauline and 3rd went to Katya. It had been a long day of paddling and I think both me & Katya ran out of steam, we showed our best a round to early.
Full Results of all events: Resultats SKF 2013
It had been an awesome day, it’s a really great atmosphere at these events and we got to catch up with friends we hadn’t seen for a long time, get closer to competitors we paddled with all year but in a more fun based event people are more relaxed and generally just enjoy paddling at such a good hole in a beautiful spot.
The evening was a free competitors dinner & international film festival. The paddler’s vote went to Gerd’s Stikene Film and was duly awarded the first place.
Sunday was a big surprise. One day a year the dam releases and the upper stretch of the river runs. What we didn’t guess was how good it is! The first drop is the outflow tube, immense power kicks up a big wavey hole, that looks like something you’d see in Uganda! Katya even got surfed around for 20 seconds before getting flung out downstream then we had various rapids of differing difficulties for the next hour to the take out. There must have been over 100 paddlers out so there was some great carnage but most of all many happy paddlers. It wasn’t that hard a run but it was fierce enough to be fun for everyone. At the take out the organisers gave everyone another free dinner before everyone headed off their separate ways.
You got treated so well at these events, free dinners, shuttles, good competition, entertainment, rash vests & prize money – I think the Organisers of Worlds could have used some inspiration for how you run events. Here you’re made to feel welcome and guaranteed a great experience regardless of how you do.
Again a big thank you to Quim, Nuria & all Fontane Maso family for another great time here in Catalonia, we loved the event and can’t wait to come back at next years World Cup!!! Such a good place to paddle & stay.
We even managed to squeeze in a trip to the beach and a visit to Salvador Dali’s house 
Pringle
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
Till next time,
Pringle
It’s now just 14 days away until the 2013 Freestyle Kayak World Championships kicks off in Nantahala, USA.
We’ve been at NOC the rafting base/ comp site for the last week now and it’s good to see all the faces old & new showing up and getting the hang of the hole.
It’s like a rainforest here, it’s rained consistently everyday! The upside is that it’s quite warm and the area is lush with forests so it’s very scenic all around us but it does make it hard to get our new thermals dry
The hole is quite tricky for some moves, but everything goes and because of the challenging nature it’s fun trying to figure out all your moves here.
It feels quite fresh and exciting this year, all the companies have new boats to show off and the number of paddlers ripping is higher than ever. It really feels like freestyle’s booming again.
Speaking of standard it’s quite impressive how much Women’s and even Junior women’s have come on in the last two years. It’s not unusual to see junior girls throwing Mc’nasties or Phonic’s and now it’s many senior women regularly throwing the big moves, I think there scores will be much closer to the men’s than we’ve ever seen. Even open canoeists are throwing mc’nasties and lunars!
In the men’s it’s going to be the battle royale, there are European Champions, WW GP winners, World Cup winners, multiple former World Champs and many new comers all fighting it out to get there best rides ready, it’s a very open competition so far, I predict the winning ride is going to be quite an insane ride & score.
Team Palm members that are here so far are myself, Katya & Bren. Personally I’m very happy with how I’m getting used to the hole, rides are going great but I still need to get some consistency in my Lunars & Tricky Whu’s to give me the extra jump up to stand a chance of winning but there is plenty of time for me to put the finishing touches to my ride. Bren fresh back from creeking all summer has got back into playboating without any struggle by the looks of it, he’s looking powerful as ever and has been getting some rides that could get him a medal already. Katya has had a great year of competition so far, and straight away has been doing rides that will let her go far, she’s just been working on getting her mc’nasty and phonics consistent which would give her a winning ride, she actually got one ride today that I don’t think is beatable
So to wrap my blog up here are my current tips on who else is looking good:
Dane Jackson, it’s no surprise but he’s really throwing some very nice moves and rides and he’s almost certainly going to be on the podium.
Peter Csonka I haven’t seen too many full rides of him yet as I think he’s mostly getting all his moves dialled in but he won here last year and of the full comp rides I’ve seen him go for they’d be tough to beat, he’s also in my eyes the best competitior in freestyle, no one steps it up like he does under pressure.
For women’s – Claire O’Hara is looking strong, but not all of her main competition arrived yet, it’s also nice to see quite a few new girls coming up and paddling well. Japanese girls very impressed us with their progress from last year, some American girls like Adrienne learned new moves, and many strong paddlers from Europe. So I think in the women’s it will be a tough fight as well.
So back to training for us we’ll have an update up again soon as more faces arrive and team training’s get started, this would be the time to pick our favourites and let you know how we’re looking!
We’ve spent the last week paddling, training and enjoying Salt in Catalonia. After the Natural Games we didn’t know where best to go to to train for the next week. Quim Fontane Maso (European Champion) suggested to come to his home spot in the city of Salt.
The hole which Quim and his Dad built themselves has been perfect for training – not too easy, some tricky aspects but gives some good pop and good competion practice. Also paddling with Quim & Nuria in their home spot really pushed us and was good fun too.
The area has been stunning from the medievel village Besalu where we stayed to, the sights of Girona and Barcelona. We’ve seen buildings by Gaudi, paintings by Dali and Picasso and bridges from Eiffel but I think what I liked best of the area was the crystal clear water and deserted beaches…rest days were not hard to fill here! With such good kayaking, company & scenary it’s been a joy to train here.
Quim, Nuria ,Teresa (mum) & Dad (Joaquim) were amazing to us – I’ve never had such good hospitality – from housing us, to showing us all the best bits of the area to inviting us to particpate in there floodlight night session and mass river descent the next day. They were fantastic.
We even made it onto the local TV: http://tvgirona.xiptv.cat/ultima-hora/capitol/campionat-del-mon-de-kayak-free-style
Now it’s time for us to leave and head to Sort where we have the next competition looming, sorry to leave what’s been my favourite spot of the year but looking forward to getting another chance to compete.
Here is a video of my training from here & Millau: http://youtu.be/5W5d9v1lirk
Pringle
P.S. A huge thanks to the Fontane Maso family for inviting us here and looking after us!
The Lunar Orbit is another of my favourite moves. It looks quite complicated but actually it’s much more simple than you might think.
It’s just a Stern Squirt into the bow end of a cartwheel. You start it from a front surf/ blast in a hole. You can even practice the motion of stern squirting into cartwheels on flatwater to get a feel for the move before trying it in a hole.
Step One:
Lift your bow up onto the green water so that you’re sitting in a front surf. You lift the bow using a big sweep stroke and place the nose of your boat slightly pointing in the direction you plan to rotate.
Step Two:
As soon as you reach the front surf, drop your upstream knee so that your edging upstream (catching the water on your tail), at the same time as this tense your core & look around in the direction you’ll rotate and using the back of your blade pry the boat into a stern squirt.
Step Three:
Now your boat will have gone vertical and started to rotate around that prying blade. To keep it in control have a marker directly upstream of you and keep looking ahead of the boats rotation ready to spot that marker just before you slam the bow down again.
Step Four:
Having spotted your upstream marker, switch your pry stroke into a push stroke, keep your weight forwards and aggressively as you can push the bow under the water.
Finishing the move:
After this last end you can either do a big back stroke to make sure you retain in flushy features or in more retentive spots you can continue into more cartwheels or other moves as this move links very well.
Main points to remember:
- Make sure you set your angle & edge correctly on the initiation.
-Keep your core tensed and use your pry to stop yourself from just catching an edge and falling over upstream.
-Look ahead of the boats rotation ready to spot that marker.
-Play around with how far back & forwards you lean during the move to get it fine-tuned.
Good luck and get paddling,
Pringle
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.
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).
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.
I am very thankful for everyone this year for a very warm hearted experience at Tivdia, and for all friends who provided photos. More detailed photo report you can find here http://www.kayaknroll.ru/news/tivdiya-fristajl-2013-fotoreportazh-s-mesta-sobytij/#more-11678
and here
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
This weekend I hopped over to Czech to a small spot in the city of Pilzen for a fun, relaxed, freestyle competition.
It was really good to go to a competition and it have such a good atmosphere around it, friendly people and good weather!
The hole itself was very unusual and quite difficult to set up it, the Czech paddlers definitely have had to learn some unusual techniques to paddle here so it took quite a while for the paddlers who hadn’t been here before to get the hang of how to throw moves here at all
The event was more about socialising, (the punk music was a bit dubious though), playing around in the hole, pushing each other on and paddling for the fun of it. That said in the finals the gloves came off as we all had a good fight to the finish.
I thought either myself or Martin Koll won with Jan spindler somewhere near also. In such a tricky spot its hard to tell what the judges think, so we were all waiting hard to see the scores as it was always going to be close.
This time Jan Spindler won, Martin 2nd & me 3rd. Congrats to Jan!
Here is a short not very edited, selection of the best moves from the finals:
Thank you to all the paddlers, locals and organisers for putting on such a good event and making me feel so welcome to Czech!
Next event is the Lienz rodeo in Austria on the 8th of June, more from me then.
Pringle
This month i’m going to teach you how to do the McNasty.
It’s a great move, you can start it from many different positions and setups, it’s quick to do, impressive to see and is one of the highest scoring moves.
The technique I’m going to show you here is the most commonly used one and is the one I use nearly all the time.
Step 1: Get yourself into a nice stable side surf.
Step 2: Keep your upstream knee up, hold that edge on, then push off the back face of your paddle and sweep your boat into a back surf.
Step 3: Just before you reach a backsurf, lean forwards and drop your upstream paddle blade into the water and start pulling on the green water.
It’s important not to pause too long in a backsurf or drop your edge here, keep your momentum and keep that edge held on.
Step 4: As your pulling keep looking ahead of the boats rotation. If you have the correct amount of edge you’ll start to go vertical now.
Step 5: Now you should be in a normal looping position. Push down hard on your feet for added pop, jump up and then tuck hard forwards smashing both your paddle blades off the water to push you as high as you can.
Step 6: When your body has gone all the way to the front, snappily open out your body as aggressively as you can & kick your feet out in front of you.
Step 7: Once in a front surf again, do a few quick powerful forward strokes to retain the hole.
Top tips for learning this one:
-Play around with how fast you spin the boat, how much edge you hold on and how long you pause before the loop. Find what works best for your features, boat & style.
-Make sure you spot an upstream marker like a tree or a slalom pole before you throw the loop. This will help you to keep it straight and make it more likely to score.
It’s one of my favourite moves and one of the most fun to do, good luck & get out there and try it.
Pringle
