It was very interesting experience to be back in place which i used to call “my home”. I haven’t visit Altay for 3 years, and didn’t paddle this Rivers for 4 years. But time from 2004-2007, my first four summers in kayak i spend here, paddling every day and sleep under open sky every night, and every autumn it was painful to leave. My life changed a lot since this time in all directions: my mind, my friends, my location (which is in constant change), my kayaking, my dreams and i think i even look different now. It was a bit of surprise, what things here stayed the same, and local paddlers live same lifestyle as 4-5 year ago.
However there is one noticeable improvement – amount of kayakers paddling here went from 5-6 to 30-40! This competition organised for the second time and looks like it growing big! Kayak culture rooted here and region drown more and more attention for the paddlers from western lands. As soon as i realise i’ll be visiting my parents around this time i decide to come and support my old friends effort by participating in Race.
We arrived on Friday – first day of competition. 12 hours drive for here is no big deal, and we took boats and climbed up to put in for Chinese Race. It was a mass start with over 20 people. I paddled careful as i didn’t remember the lines perfectly and missed one night sleep on a way here. Surprisingly run went smooth and i got 11 from 22 people, leaving all other 5 girls far behind.
Evening i spend so good, what next day i felt a bit uncoordinated on a water. First part went good, but i last rapid , i guess i suddenly missed freestyle, so my unconscious desires led me to the hole, and then to another one. Safety guys enjoyed my beating and laughed hard. I lost quit a bit of time, but paddled hard on last km. My time was 6 min 3 sec and i finished 3d, missing first place by 15 sec and second by 0.5 sec! I hoped it will be final next day, but girls decide to cancel it, because some of them was too scared. This rapids a pretty powerful, so i was impressed to see 6 ladies racing!
Mans final was on most difficult part of the gorge, best 10 all successfully made it to the bottom. First place was not a surprise – Egor Voskoboynikov (winner of all Russian races) after big party and late night sleep won again. Vasiliy Porsev – main organiser of everything to do with Altay kayaking – got in to a hole, so finished only 3rd.
All competition going on in deep gorge, its not what great for spectators, but very intense for competitors, even there are safety after every rapid you still feel lost and alone. I was taking picture in canyon, so got to run last bit one more time. Paddle down without racing was great and i got clean lines, regained confidence shaken yesterday.
Awards ceremony was straight after. Prizes was pretty good, that is one bit i especially like about Russian competitions. I very hope plans about damming this river will not work out and next year and many years after kayakers will paddle and helicopters will fly high filming our finals of King of Asia race..
I love this Rivers and beauty of nature here, i feel safe and at home. Connection to this land is unbreakable like with mother. Even you not live together anymore and visit rarely u promise to come back. I will definitely come back here and introduce it to my new friends. I am proud to be from those lands.
The World Championships for me had a pretty dream ending, taking home the Gold Medal in Mens K1!!!
Throughout the event i’d not really paddled at the level I knew I could. I knew I was being too relaxed, not aggressive enough. For the finals I focused on pumping myself up as hard as I could and getting ready to have the fight of my life.
First ride didn’t go my way but I was feeling more myself for sure. 2nd ride I just gave it everything I had and got 1020 pts. The leading score at that point but definately not unbeatable, so 3rd ride i went even harder. I didn’t go as big as my 2nd ride but squeezed in a few extra moves to get 1053 points.
Then i had to watch as 4 great kayakers, Gerd, Nick, Stephen and Peter all went and gave it their all trying to beat my score. They all paddled great and Peter, who is a deadly competitor and amazing kayaker, very nearly got me. Finally though, luck and timing went my way and I took the win!!!
I never felt so good as when the results came out and I could see everyones faces. All my friends, family, Katya and many of the people who helped and supported me over the years all around enjoying the moment. And then all the GB team piling on top of me and sinking me. Seeing how happy and emotional Terry Best (friend and supporter for years) was was so so nice. Then seeing Guigui’s face after finally one of his amazing designs the Easymix 2008 got to the top!
The whole experience was one of the best moments in my life!
Watch the video below to find out how James trained
his body and mind for the event – ed
Standing on the podium it was exactly how it looked when i visualized it
The whole event was such a fun time. Always something going on, great people, perfect water levels. Robson, the ICF and the judging team did a great job pulling it off!
Big props should also go out to GB’s Claire O’hara who won Gold in Squirt and Womens K1 and Palm’s Bren Orton who took the Bronze in the Junior Mens!
Below are the videos of my final rides:-
Photos of all the various Finals:-
On off day we had on Friday they had a some additional events like King of the Wave and an SUP race as well as the Teva Big air comp. Katya kills it in this and took the joint win with huge Airloops and Godzilla’s ahead of all the boys tied only to team Germany who did a loop with 3 Kayaks tied together all at once!!!! check the photos:-
The journey I took to this point is pretty unusual. I loved kayaking since i was 12 and loved to freestyle kayak almost as long. After competing for most of my junior years i’d had a few successes but lost my way a bit about 4 years ago when I got a bit distracted by the party scene. I had a great time then but forgot what it was that i really wanted to do with my life.
I was working as a video kayaker on the Nile with NRE working for Davey O’hara with my buddy Anton and I was having a great time there. On the river every day, partying every night but at the same time i felt not truly happy.
I was missing something. About 3 months after i moved to Uganda I met Katya and together we at first went harder than ever in the bar but she also was so fired up on Freestyle that I began to find my fire for it again. Gradually my focus went off the bar and back onto being in my boat; surfing, catching air and throwing tricks. At this point i saw how Peter Csonka was training hard and kicking ass and I really admired his focus and determination. It was then I decided I was going to be a World Champion one day.
So we left Uganda and started to compete and train hard. Over time we got more and more successful in our competing and this last two years have been amazing. A win at last year’s World Cup, 2nd in the Europeans and now the World Champs Gold. It really has been the best couple of years.
We train hard and have done lots of work to get to this point and Katya has been the best coach you could have.
She also introduced me to many new ideas and approaches to life, we eat only raw fruit and vegetables for a start, we hardly drink any more and we meditate daily. All these aspects she introduced me to have had a profound effect on my happiness and kayaking. Life is for enjoying and improving yourself, this is what makes it so fun.
My next goals are to keep improving as a person, get my wave kayaking to the same level as my hole kayaking, keep competing on the highest levels, help Katya to get her goals, see more new places and to keep pushing ourselves and our kayaking as far as we can!
I have so many people to thank for getting me to this point: Shep, Sneaky, Terry and the whole Best family, Pete Caterall, Hippy Dave, Tim Ward, Jacko, Pete Astles, Sam Ward and Dennis Newton, Matt Chadder and Dickie. Wigan Canoeing Groups Eric Bradbury, Bob Andrews and Will Potts. Elton, Tim, Simon and Sophie from Reaseheath College.
All the Uganda/ NRE crew particularly Davey and Timmy.
My friends who made this year so good and fun, Aniol and Gerd Serrasolses, Martin Koll, Emily Wall, Bartosz, Irish Tom, Mathieu, Sam Ward and Anton Immler & everyone who was at the WW GP event.
Guigui for making the best freestyle Kayaks out there!
EJ, Mathieu Dumoulin, Peter Csonka, Rush Sturges, Pat Camblin and all the Tribe athletes and GB / Palm’s Cheesy for giving me continued inspiration and ambition.
My Sponsors Mark Burch at Brookbank Canoe Stores, Cheesy and everyone at Palm Equipment for the amazing kit and Arnd and everyone at Teva Shoes. Thanks to them all for giving me the opportunity to train full time in pursuit of my goals!
The biggest thanks though go to my Mum, Dad & Katya. They’re the ones who have shaped my life the way it is and are my biggest supporters!
For some reason the levels and weather in Plattling this last two years have been pretty wild, either 30degrees and no water for months at a time or the opposite; big storms & flooding all of a sudden.
So far we’ve avoided the floods at this event but it’s always looked like its on the cards since a few storms before the event brought the level upto a good high level just in time.
With the forecast of imminent flooding due this Friday the Worlds has been ran at a super tight schedule and after only 2.5 days of competition were pretty much done apart form finals.
Day One:- Tuesday 21st – Women’s, Squirt & C1 Prelims
Women’s kicked the competition off the field needed to be cut down to the top 20.
Prelims are always the toughest round mentally as you get 2 rides with both counting. The score you needed to make the cut was 233 which is quite high for the women’s quarter finals:- the top score was over 1000. Women really took a step up this Worlds!
Katya scored 520 with Loops, Felix’s and Mc’nasties & Palm’s Anna Hubner also made the cut with 288 & all the GB girls made it too.
Top 3 in Squirt were:- Jamie Austin 1st, Dane Jackson 2nd, Colin Kemp 3rd
Top 3 in C1 were:- Dane Jackson 1st, Philip Hitzigrath 2nd, Igor Juanikorena 3rd
Full Results for all classes:- http://icf-freestyle.de/results.php5
Day Two:- Wednesday 22nd – Mens & Juniors Prelims/ Men’s & Women’s Quarter Finals
Organizers managed to do the impossible schedule today starting at 7am with the mens Prelims of 81 men cut down to the top 25 by 12:30 in afternoon, then was Junior boys and girls prelims followed by Quarter Finals of Women at 18:30 then Mens Quarter finals began at 20:30 and finished in darkness at almost midnight.
As a competitor it was a full on mammoth of a day. In the prelims I managed to get pretty good rides scoring 1436 and placing 3rd with EJ in 2nd and Stephen Wright 1st. All the GB men made it too.
In the Junior Boys Palm’s Bren Orton has been paddling great in practice and managed to make the cut to 10 in 8th place along with GB’s James Benn’s in 9th.
In the Women’s Quarter final (cutting to 10) Katya did consistently good rides to place 5th with 656points! An the women’s scores in general were very high with 3 women getting over 1000. Palm’s Anna Huebner also made the cut in 10th. 1st was Ruth Gordon Ebens, 2nd Clairo O’hara & 3rd Emily Wall.
The Mens Quarter final started for me being in the last heat at 22:30! I had pretty good rides a bit better than in the prelims and bumped up to 2nd place with 1703, 3rd was Dustin Urban and 1st was Peter Csonka with 1763 who had just made the prelims cut in 25th place…! Pretty good jump back up. The big suprise was Ej getting knocked out in 11th.
Day Three:- Semi Finals Day
All semi finals today was finished by 1 in afternoon because in the evening flood was expected, but hasn’t come in just yet.
Palm’s Bren Orton made it into Junior Mens Final in 5th place. Boy has some real talent and I think if he shows his best in the final he has some good chances.
In Women’s Katya had a consistent ride but missed final by 17points…landing her last huge space godzilla just out of time. She finished up 7th. I feel she did well but still has a lot left to show everyone in competition. 1st was Emily Jackson, 2nd Claire O’hara, 3rd Ruth Gordon Ebens.
In the Mens I had great starts to my first ride then missed my fonix’s so for my second ride i felt quite a bit of pressure knowing i needed to score higher if i wanted to make it. I did better than the first ride but still a long way from my best. I managed to make 5th place with 733 points…very relieved. 1st was Peter Csonka, 2nd Nick Troutman, 3rd Stephen Wright.
For full results on all classes and the live video feed check out the event website:-http://icf-freestyle.de/
We now have friday off before finals on Saturday, wish me luck,
In Plattling the site of the 2011 Freestyle Kayak World Champs things are really hotting up, it’s exciting as its now days away from the beginning on nation training and not long till the events prelims kick off!
The levels have risen to almost perfect levels, paddlers from all over the world are flying in with many new boat designs from plastic and carbon and many of the main contenders are honing in their comp rides. Its a pretty fun time to be here. You can feel the anticipation around the camp ground as people come and check out what everyone’s throwing, what boat people are using, what moves are working and what aren’t and of course the downside of all the paddlers coming in….long eddy queues!
For myself I have spent quite a lot of time here already and have a good idea of what my ride will be whatever the level so i’m just choosing the times when the hole is quiet to get on and make sure all my moves are still going how i want and work on some of my harder tricks to see if i can get something extra special to pull out if i need it.
One of the really cool things about this event is how people are really stepping their paddling up to new levels, the Americans generally have been really focusing on linking the moves together as much as possible whereas the Europeans have been focusing on going big and super straight on the big moves and on various trophy moves and the more fluid linked sequences.
The women have also taken a big jump up in their paddling and the top competitiors are throwing many of the high scoring moves in their rides and i expect the top girls scores will place highly in the mens too. Katya’s been getting really good rides lately hitting big Fonix’s, Mc’nasties, loops and Godzilla’s and i think if she keeps her current surge going she stands a great chance.
I mentioned earlier how paddlers are pulling out all stops here to win with many paddlers having spent at least the last half year doing focused training for this event and also about the huge variety of boats been used here, i’ll go into that a bit more;-
We have the Jackson Rockstar and All Stars in both plastic and Carbon being used by the majority of the paddlers, many are saying the perfer the plastic over the carbon addition which is a bit puzzling to me but does seem to be reflected in their paddling. Watch out for Gerd from Spain and of course Ej, Dane, Nick & Emily along with Dustin Urban/ Stephen Wright to go well in this design.
Then their is the new Robson Carbon boat which was designed by Martin Koll mainly for this event and is really strong for Mc’nasties and Fonix’s and looks like it can go very well especially in low water. Many of the German team will use this boat.
And of course the Composite Guigui-Prod Easymix 2008 and the newer 2010 edition. I use the 2008 model and think that its the best design hands down for any hole feature as long as your the right build for it. For the smaller paddlers the 2010 edition looks like a good contendor with a few of the Spainish and french looking good in it.
The Vajda composite boats are also out in force here with Peter Csonka, Bartosz from Poland and Katya all looking good and standing a good chance to do well in them.
Then from Wavesport their is the Project X which is looking like a very hot design but only available in plastic. Look out for Bryan Kirk and Simon Strohemier in these.
Finally their are a few home made and adapted composite boats here such as Joey Hitchens own creation and Seppi Strohmeier’s cut up and adapted Carbon Wavesport CX.
Its going to be really interesting to see which styles and designs come out on top here at Worlds. there has been a huge amount of creativity and development put into freestyle for this one competition and huge step up in skill levels around the World and around the disciplines. I really think the Europeans stand a great chance to take away a lot of the medals at this event!!!
Anyways, here’s a few photos of what’s been going on, check back soon for more on whats going on as the event kicks off!
Wish me and Katya some good luck for the next couple weeks!
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..
We had such a great time in Galicia and Portugal, it was pretty hard to leave but as we got to the beginning of April came around we set off on the drive to Plattling in Germany.
This spot is where the World Championships will be held later in the year. Its a river wide weir with the best parts being the hole on the river left and two wavey sections in the middle and river right side. The level when we first arrived was super low and the weather baltic! But luckily for us that night the rains came in and brought the level up to ideal conditions for the holey section.
Having spent our time in Galicia enjoying the rivers & lifestyle aspect of kayaking along with surfing on the Frieira dam wave it was time to get into a more serious training mode in Plattling to get into shape to give the World Champs our best shot!
Its a good hole for sure but certainly not as easy as people generally think but it does give up some very good rides when you put the work into learnt the sweet spots. At higher levels you can get some ridiculous loops and lower levels you need to be careful to avoid the rocks but you can get really good rides still if your careful.
After 3 weeks paddling here together Katya flew back to Russia to compete in her team selections & apply for her Canadian visa in order to go to the Whitewater Grand Prix in Canada in May. This left me kind of alone living in the Van just paddling as much as I can until we fly out to Canada at the end of the month.
Thankfully their are a few others spending their time living in the carpark here and life in the van is one of my favourite aspects to the kayaking lifestyle. Looking in from the outside, being in a van all the time might seem a bit tough but in reality I love it, Kayak everyday, wake up next to the river, move on to the next spot without any hassle i really wouldn’t change anything.
I’ll be paddling here until the end of the month when both me & Katya fly out to Canada for the Whitewater Grand Prix event. Can’t wait
Features footage from our drive from the Uk to Galicia, time on the Frieira Dam Wave on the Spain/ Portugal border and then the footage we have from our weeks creeking in Portugal.
In under-two months time Katya and myself will be heading to the Whitewater Grand Prix in Canada. An all around event that will feature 3 Creeking competitions and 3 Freestyle to crown the ultimate all around Whitewater Champion on some of the biggest whitewater and waves in the world.
To prepare for this we travelled to the Galicia region of Spain/ Portugal and so far have been spending time honing our wave skills on the Dam wave in Frieira and in the Ocean Surf that I wrote about in my last update.
This last week we set about getting the feel of being in creekboats again as we joined up with Aniol Serrasolses from Spain and a bunch of super friendly Portugese Kayakers who’ve been showing us around some beautiful rivers in the area.
The rivers we ran down were the Alto Tea, Cascada de Umia, Rio Bec/ Tameda, some really low Rocky ditch & the Rio Castro Laboreiro.
The rivers for me were all incredibly beautiful with a very wild setting and super clean clear water. I really enjoyed the beauty of the areas we past through! In my boat I felt very rusty at first going from a 7kg carbon playboat to a 17kg plastic river boat is a bit of a shock at first but the boats (Mamba & Axiom) handled great once we got the feel for them.
The Mamba was just so forgiving and easy to paddle, it feels like it just always goes the best possible route through a rapid even when you miss your stroke or something and the Axiom is just so versatile, I used it in big surf last week and it was a blast and then on some technical creeks and big water runs here and it handled perfectly and is incredibly fast. Its going to be hard to choose which to use for Canada…
I’ll let the photos do most of the talking but the highlight for me was definitely the big Slide “Cascada de Umia”. Aniol had shown us some photos on the internet, and mentioned it had probabl never been ran. It looked very spectacular so on the second day myself, Katya and Aniol drove to check it out on our way down south to Portugal.
We arrived to find it had some water in it and looked just as it did in the photos. It had a few sketchy bits on it that I was a bit unsure about it but Aniol seemed confidant on his line so he walked up to the top and nailed a perfect, smooth line down the whole drop and slide to take the First Descent (as far as we know anyway).
Having seen Aniol style it I decided on my line and went for it! It went better than I imagined and it was such a great feeling coming through the spray on the kicker into the pool below! Really sick slide in an awesome setting.
One of the other really spectacular rivers we did was the Portugese classic the Rio Castro Laboreiro. We decided to run down the upper and middle section back to back. The upper section had some really great rapids, drops and slides and the lower 3 fantastic waterfalls (6m, 10m & 12m) and one giant portage. The day was a bit of an adventure with some big beatings and a couple swims, 2 split kayaks, one drowned camera, and an epic portage that meant a very late finish to the day.
All in all it was a fantastic weeks paddling, with some really great friendly kayakers that took us down some brilliant rivers that we’d have never found without them. So a big thank you to Aniol Serrasolses, Emilio, Pablo, Ramico, Joao, Luis, Antonio and the whole Portugese crew who offered us great hospitality and a really enjoyable week!
Check out the Photos & Flickr Slide show below to get a better look at our adventures.
We left the UK two weeks ago to head out on our European migration and after a leisurely 5 day drive we arrived in Frieira next to the Rio Mino on the Spain/ Portugal border.
So far we’ve been spending most of our time at the wave below the Dam in Frieira.
It works best in the morning and ussualy drops off in the afternoon although the dam releases have been a little unpredictable so far.
The wave at the right level is probably one of the best in Europe, and a reasonable hole at lower flows. The only downsides is that you need to catch it from above which means after each ride is a tough walk back up over jagged rocks and through thorny gorse bushes to get back in, but luckily the wave really makes up for the hard walk back to the top.
The area of Galicia we’ve been in so far has been pretty warm with beautiful lush scenary all around us, a really great place to kayak.
This weekend just gone we drove to the Portugese coast to head out in our brand new as yet un-used Axiom in some very violent hefty storm surf. The boat handled great in the rough conditions and I had a very short session getting battered around before it got too big and I retreated back to the beach.
Check the photo gallery below to see more of what we’ve been upto…
