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
Bren and all the GB men safely through to the next round!
The long day of Men’s Prelims has come to a close. Prelims are always a bit of a weird one, you have no throw away rides (2 rides – combined score counts) and everyone is usually a bit tense, you get some paddlers saving themselves and others going all out to show what they can do. Some people got lucky, some didn’t but now its over, those that are through can settle down a bit and start showing what they can really do without the nerves and pressure of the first round.
For myself I was eager to get started, first ride was going great until I got a bit hung up on my Lunar, then 2nd ride went all a little bit off my usual style, but it was enough to put me in 9th with 1829 points (cut is to 20), not my best by a long way but good to get the nerves out of the system. I like not being too high up the placings until the later rounds but also don’t want to cut it too close. Last Worlds I think I started similarly so lets hope I follow that Worlds trend
All GB men made the cut! So we’re super stoked! Palm’s Bren Orton safely took 8th with 1859 and Alan Ward took 16th with 1610.
All the favourites safely made it through with no major upsets, and now people will be more settled and I expect the top positions will be switching every round until finals with things so close.
Overall win for the day went to Dane Jackson, he did two very consistent rides with many huge moves to take the top spot. Mathieu Dumoulin linked it up to take 2nd followed by a powerful showing by Peter Csonka to take 3rd, Nicholas Troutman was 4th, Jason Craig 5th and fellow Dagger paddler Tomasz Czaplicki in 6th. (full results below).
Tomorrow we have Women’s Prelims in the morning then Mens quarters in the afternoon. So please cheer us all on as we’ll need all the support we can get! Tune into the live stream on http://www.freestylekayaking2013.com/
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!
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.
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
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.
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
Last week there was sunshine. In the UK. Even in depths of North Wales! Well, what better time to get out and put the new FX PFD to the test?
I’m so impressed with this buoyancy aid, the freedom of movement is incredible and the amount you can fit in the pocket while it stays out of the way blows my mind! OK, that’s perhaps a little dramatic… but seriously, it’s like Mary Poppins designed this!
It’s proper safe too (and not just cos it keeps to the first rule of safety: Look Cool), the shoulder straps are sewn right down to the waist making them integral to the whole system and less likely to fail when you really need them. Most other manufacturers just sow to the top seam, even on their top spec “rescue” buoyancy aids!
This weekend we gathered at my home spot for the Dee River Festival in Llangollen, North Wales.
Surflines- The Palm Store - http://thepalmstore.co.uk/ joined the rest of the guys from Palm to show off our 2013 range of kit along with as many Dagger Demos as we could fit in the van.
We were incredibly fortunate that the rain Gods shone on us and brought the river up to a playful 5 meaning some sporty lines downriver and a nice little play wave at the bottom of the Mill section.
The event is all about getting as many paddlers on the water as possible, having a good time, trying out all the latest boats and generally enjoying an iconic Welsh river together.
There were many different activities and coaching clinics going on for all styles of paddler. We had creekers, freestylers, SUP’ers, rafters, open canoeists and every type of paddler in between. All enjoying the (mostly) good weather, paddling together and joining in the many clinics.
Palm’s Cheesy & G17′s Simon even turned there hand to Open Canoeing, the results however weren’t as pretty as the drysuits that kept them toasty and dry. They were last spotted swimming off towards Chester when it all went wrong at Town Falls…
We had all three sizes of Dagger’s new Jitsu playboat for people to try. Having being one of the main testers it’s a boat im passionate about. It’s great to see paddlers of all abilities hopping into them and loving how they’re paddling. It was very satisfying seeing people’s grins as they were surfing up the mighty bottom wave.
Katya & myself made the most of the good levels and had a good session in the sun in our Jitsu’s followed by a blast down the river in the Dagger Greens. Now if you ever get a chance to try one of the Green boats I highly recommend it, surprisingly whenever you get to a rapid they really come to life, great fun! You can’t help but sprint in them though
Thanks to everyone who came and said hello, if you were there check the gallery below to see if you got snapped by us
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.
as a result finished only 3rd after winning prelims. Will be smarter next time.
