I’m back home in the Uk for the first time since February now so now i’ve got power and internet I had a chance to put together a little video clip from a couple sessions after Worlds in Plattling & a session on Rogers Wave in France earlier in the year.
Check it out below:-
James ‘Pringle’ Bebbington
We caught up with Palm’s James ‘Pringle’ Bebbington over Skype to find out how he prepared his body and mind to blow away the competition at the ICF Freestyle World Championships 2011. Watch the video below or on Youtube.
More:
Read Pringle’s post world championships blog
Ask Pringle a question on Facebook
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!
So happy right now. Do only what you enjoy most!
Pringle 
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,
Pringle
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
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.
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
till next time,
Pringle & Katya
So finally got our video from the Galicia trip online, you can check it out below:-
or to watch in High Defintition click the link below:-
Destination Galicia Video – HD Link
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.
Such a great trip and a really sick destination!
Paddlers: James Bebbington, Katya Kulkova & Aniol Serrasolses
Edit By: Pringle & Katya
Filming by: Katya, Pringle, Aniol, Rabico & Pablo
more updates soon,
Pringle
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.
Pringle & Katya
Photos By: Me, Katya, Aniol & Ramico
