Teva Mountain Games – Event Wrap Up

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.

bye for now,

Pringle

Photo’s By Casper & Arnd

 

 

Teva Mountain Games Update 3 FREESTYLE COMP from Rush Sturges on Vimeo.

 

P.S. If you didn’t get to see it here is the link to my full report and photos from the Whitewater Grand Prix event.

http://riverzoo.eu/RiverZoo/Blog/Entries/2011/5/26_Pringle_%26_Katya_-_Whitewater_Grand_Prix!.html

Teva Mountain Games Vail, Colorado – Step 1: Steep Creek Championships

After arriving Monday night in the amazing little town 2445 m above sea level in the middle of Colorados Eagle County I had two awesome days getting ready for the steep creek competition at Homestake even higher up in the mountains. Having my first practice runs down the tricky steep section I quickly got an idea what it means to race in that altitude. Having nice practice runs I felt best prepared for the Steep Creek Championships on Thursday. My first run was pretty sweet till I entered the last pool, there I got turned around and went backwards over the last drop. Lucky me was able to roll and finish the first run at forth place. So the top five lady were supposed to do a second run – both counted. It was Adriene Levknecht (USA) in the lead with an incredible advance of seven seconds to the next placed Martina Wegman from the Netherlands and Nikki Kelly out of New Zealand. Trying to catch a place on the podium in the finals I didn´t really find into the race again and ended up forth. Adriene took home the 2000 dollars price money followed by Nikki and Martina. Lou Urwin from New Zealand was the only lady who did better in the second run than in the first but finally ended up fifth. Congrats to Adriene for her absolute superior time which would have placed her under the top 15 of the mens.

The first run of the mens class was dominated by Mike Dawson (NZL) beating the time of second placed Honza Lasko by three seconds followed by Jakub Nemec in third position, both from the Czech Republic.The mens kept fighting hard in the finals and the spectators got to see sweet lines as well as good carnage down the last drop “leap of faith”. In the end the top three didn´t give any chance to the following crowd and there was a almost unbelievable finish were both Honza and Mike ended up with exactly the same time after two runs. So they shared the first place at the podium and split the price money – Jakub stayed in third position and sent off Michele Ramazza (Italy) and Sam Sutton (NZL) to the places four and five.

Team Palm paddler James”Pringle” Bebbington had a hard time in the strong mens competitors field and ended up 31th.

Having a fun day out there yesterday, got to see smooth lines, hard crashes and carnage I´m excited about todays Freestyle competition in the heart of Vail.