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
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.
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.
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.
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.
The day started with the Men’s K1 Quarter Finals, cutting the field to 10 with three 45-second rides, best 2 counting.
The water was dirty from yesterday night’s thunderstorms but the level seemed to be lower making the feature tougher and harder work to get the moves in.
In the Quarters, everyone was expecting higher scores as we had one ride to throw away but in the end it was lower scores than yesterday, with paddlers getting to grips with the harder level.
The GBR team did very good with all 3 making the top 10, GB’s James Weight in 1st. He is consistently performing on a top level this event. He is the only paddler managing to hit any combo/ trophy moves (the back loop to mcnasty).
I got 5th with mediocre rides I wasn’t quite happy with my paddling so went away to the nearby lake to pull myself together to bring out my best for the semi finals later.
It is a very hot beautiful sunny weather here, but this also means the paddlers are boiling in their gear in the waiting eddy (water is still quite cold here, so many wearing long cags despite the sun).
Next up was the Junior Men’s Semi Final, cutting from 10 to the top 5 who go through to the Final tomorrow. Many boys were struggling with the lower water level.
Palm’s Bren Orton managed to put it together in his 2nd run to get 1st again with GB’s James Benns again on his heals in 2nd. The other GB paddler Sam Stephenson claimed 3rd to get his place to the finals too.
Bren has a very good chance here for the final and has been regularly hitting rides that would place him in the men’s final so I wish him good luck for the fight for the title tomorrow. James Benns the other very talented GB Junior who is very capable of doing a winning ride will probably be the only one who can be an equal competitor for Bren.
Women’s Semi Finals was next with a few surprises. The reigning World Champion GB’s Claire O’Hara unfortunately had a hard time with the lower level and finished 7th, missing the finals. Frenchie Marlene Devillez (reigning European Champion) looks like she’s going to keep her title this year with another 1st going into the finals. Palm’s Anne Huebner unfortunately also missed the final. What is good however is some new faces making the final, Norwegians Tora Heggem and Kari Olnes who just turned senior this year.
Then it was back on the water for me in the Men’s Semi Finals. Competing the second time in the same day in this hole was tough for all of us but actually the standard of rides did go up.
I finally got two rides I was happy with and came 1st with 930 points in my best ride. Just behind me by 14 points was reigning European Champion Peter Csonka, my most usual challenger who I very enjoy to paddle with and against.
He has been suffering quite a bad injury and almost didn’t practice at all in an effort to try and get healed up before the event. Through the pain however he is doing a very tough rides to beat.
3rd was Sebastian Devred from France with a very consistent rides as he usually does.
4th went to Spanish reigning Junior European Champion Joaquim Fontane. Who is performing in his first senior year at a very good level.
The last place in the finals went to GB’s James Weight who seemed to take a break from his high scoring domination to save himself for tomorrow
I think it will be one of the hardest finals I’ve ever been in, with scores similar to Worlds so far but on a much harder feature. I’m looking forward to trying to bring out my best against such good competition
Pringle
P.S. Results in the Gallery below (bit backwards order so check the corner to see whether its for Semi’s or Quarters…:-)
Last weekend myself and Palm’s Bren Orton drove down to Broxbourne to the Lee Valley Whitewater Course to help out at the Youth Freestyle event. It was just a little one this time but great fun.
The Youth Freestyle Series actually started the year I was away living in Uganda and I remember that before I left it was noticeable that their were hardly any juniors moving up, then when I came back to the UK a year after the series first season I couldn’t believe the quantity and the quality of the many new freestyle kayakers that had come up. It has now produced some of the most talented Juniors the UK’s ever produced like Bren Orton, James Benn’s, James Weight and Matt Rodgers. Now there are many more new talented juniors coming up and following in their paths. Its really impressive to see, the organisers are doing a fantastic job.
I’ll be helping out coaching, judging and filming at all the events I’m around in the UK for including the Washburn one happening this Saturday!
Below is the video we shot of the Lee Valley event, Edit by Bren, Filming by me & Bren:-
The new whitewater course is incredible, you have two good freestyle spots on the Legacy Course and on the Olympic Course there are 2 or 3 really good spots and many good drops and features for river skills. The course is fast and steep, its really impressive what they’ve managed to create in an artificial environment!
Photos at Lee Valley below taken by:- Doug Blanks
If you’re a young kayaker wanting to get into freestyle, or even just wanting to get into whitewater check out the Youth Freestyle Series and if I’m around don’t hesitate to ask me for advice or help, I’m very happy to help you.
Me & Katya have had our new Palm kit for a little while now, in all seriousness its the best gear i’ve ever used. Additionally Katya is an professional Artist so is very keen to push more beauty and style into the sport and as you might guess from my multi colored kayak I really want to stand out in my gear. The new Palm gear gives you the colours, cut and look to do that with all whilst functionally performing great too!
Below is a short video I made of Katya from one day after Worlds
Few photos of Katya in the Swirl (Purple) & Zenith (Lime)
Me & Katya are now half way through the Whitewater grand prix event in Canada.
The event comprises of 3 freestyle and 3 creek competitions on huge rapids and waves to determine the overall winner. We’ve now completed the first 3 and have 3 more to go.
Stage 1:- Big Trick Contest – Gladiator Wave
We did expect some big water&waves here in Canada, but the first event held on the Gladiator wave on the Ottawa river showed it can be even bigger. Here in Canada people enjoy huge tricky waves in the middle of the rapid, it also must have a huge hole behind for extra excitement.
You paddle out and down through the top half of the rapid then onto the wave do your best to hold on and throw a move then paddle as hards as you can to avoid the ledge hole. Most paddlers took quite a few attempts at the wave before they mustered up the courage to catch it and with such a big, surgy wave to surf getting a move was never easy. I managed to get a big Air screw as my best move that placed me 11th. Ben Marr (1st), Dane Jackson (2nd) & Rush Sturges (3rd) had the best moves of the day for sure.
Girls event was about who manage to surf the wave and longest surf wins. Lou Urwin 1st, Emily Jackson 2nd, Katya took 3rd, was very glad she did surf it at all, as even after one day not every competitor managed.
Stage 2:- Big Water Boatercross – Gauntlet on the Rouge river
Next up we headed to the Rouge river for the big water boatercross, big waves and big water awaited us but it was no where near as intense as Gladiator had been so they decided to do a mass start boatercross to cut the bottom 6 then 4 at a time head to heads to decide the rest.
The mass start was full on with 22 paddlers trying to race together down through the chaos, I had a great start reaching the first main rapid in 2nd position but that all went a bit wrong as i tried to dodge around Casper and ended up in the main hole, i never really made it back up after that so got cut out of the future rounds with the other bottom 6 paddlers. Top 3 was Nick Troutman 1st, Bryan Kirk 2nd and Anton Immler 3rd.
Ladies had not as mass start, it was only four of them, but they made it to the finish with some carnage and one swim. Katya had two runs with a good line, ended up on 2nd position.
Stage 3:- Steep creek time trial – Petite Bostonnais
Third up was a creek race time trial on the Petite Bostonnais 2 runs best 1 counts. On the drive up there was water & flooded out areas everywhere we passed through so it wasn’t a suprise to get there to find way too high flows to paddle safely but luckily for the actual competition day they managed to get the dam to reduce the flow for the event with just enough time to scout and do one practice run before the race.
The run was the hardest creek I’ve ever paddled never mind race. At the top was a double drop waterfall followed by a tricky third drop and then an absolutely massive rocky slide maybe 250m long with a big hole near the bottom.
My practice went well, apart from missing my boof on a top drop, and i really felt there were many opportunities to hurt yourself on a slide, where I felt no control and couldn’t see very much at all except from whitewater. So I wasn’t too sure about running it again in the race with already quite a few swims by some top creekers on their practice run but then i decided to at least do one run and take my chances.
I was fourth to go and on the radio as the paddlers before me set off i heard that all 3 had swam, pretty unnerving for sure but i felt good as I set off I didn’t paddle like a race at all. I took it slow got my boofs and only really started to speed up towards the end, got really good lines down all the drops/ slides but wasn’t super fast on the flats. I was the first to make it down to the finish line and was super fired up! I decided not to go for a second run being happy enough with my first. I finished up 14th in the race with the top 3 being, 1st Even Garcia, 2nd Dane Jackson & 3rd Ben Marr.
In total their were 12 swimmers during the race so I was pretty happy to have made it down fine especially since I’m not really a creeker, you know the section is full on when solid creek paddlers like Tyler Curtis, Joel Kolwalski, Nick Troutman and Aniol Serrasolses end up swimming!
Also we get to surf some waves in between competition stages. We went to the White Dog wave on a Rouge river in another day, it was the best spot here in Canada so far for freestyle as we know it in Europe – with eddy, no hassle to get on, but still big, green and fast
We keep been blown away by the scale of the rivers here, we’ve never seen so much water and rivers in an area!
The organizers keep bringing us to these amazing full on locations and putting us up in nice hotels and cabins, they even feed us sometimes it really is amazing how their pulling off the event with all those helicopters flying around..
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.
