With the lack of a playspot I spent the first couple of days practicing on the Homestake Creek which although very manky and rocky was actually quite good fun. There was talk of cancelling the Freestyle so I’d thought I better find something to compete in having come all this way 

Creeking not really being my forte and only being able to borrow other peoples boats I was pretty scrappy the first 2 runs i did, the  last 3 i had though felt better and better, so was feeling I could do an alright run in the race.

To my relief however Clay Wright and the rest of the Jackson crew spent 8 hours dropping in plywood and all sorts to try and make a useable feature and succeeded, allowing the Freestyle event to go ahead after all.

Its very brutal and shallow still but you can do some good moves if you avoid the rocks. Considering when I got here there was only a 1cm deep little hole that looked like you might be able to spin in if you got lucky, I’d call their work a big success.

Thursday I decided not to do the Creek Race and instead stayed and paddled a bunch in the play hole, trying to decide whether to use carbon (very traumatic) or plastic.

The sound of me smashing the bottom in my Carbon GuiGui could be heard back in the hotel…Thankfully Dagger let me borrow a plastic boat to use which is a lot less stressful and actually paddles really well. As much as I enjoyed the stress free paddling of the plastic Dagger prototype I ended up going with my carbon in the end. its what i’m used to and felt most comfortable using with only a little amount of time to practice.

Friday was the day of the Kayak Freestyle Qualifiers the hole was still brutally shallow it is possible to get some sweet rides as long as you manage to keep off the rocks.

The qualifier cut the field to the top 10, with each paddler getting two 1 minute rides both of which counted. For non locals here one of the main challenges of this event is the altitude.

I’d never felt the effects of altitude before coming here but it really does make it hard to breathe. I’d get 3 or 4 moves into a run and be panting hard!

Even with the challenges of altitude and low water though, the comp gave some sick rides. I had pretty good rides, missing quite a few moves from flushing a bit to low down when I tapped the rock but got enough moves stuck in the hole to come in 4th. The only other European  in the mens Mat Dumoulin from France had such a sick smooth 1st run then an ok 2nd run to take 3rd with Stephen Wright in top spot followed by Dane in 2nd.

In the Womens Uk’s Claire O’Hara cleaned up with awesome rides with Fonix’s & Mc’Nasties and a bunch of other stuff, very cool to see her doing well over here.

Full Results from all rounds and events can be found: http://www.tevamountaingames.com/summer/athletes/results/teva-mountain-games-results.aspx

Yesterday brought semi finals in the morning and finals in the afternoon. For semis the top 10 would have looked just as legitimate the other way up, a very tough field of paddlers to get in the top 5 of.

Myself, I had a pretty good 1st ride that would have been enough but I flushed just a bit too far back on a few moves for them to score. I was either smashing the rock or landing too far back in the hole not to flush a bit. Was a bit frustrating for me but theirs always next year. I ended up in joint 8th with fellow euro Mat who also didn’t get that lucky either bit of a weird level that just didn’t seem to work for us.

However it didn’t seem to stop the others throwing some awesome rides. Stephen, Dane & Dustin were all on top form in the hole and in my eyes any one of them could have won, but as the finals came around Stephen was the most consistant at getting a good mix of hard technical moves and big air and even hit a 5 move combo (no easy accomplishment in this hole) to take the Win, 2nd was Dane, 3rd was Dustin.

In the Womens Claire had  a sick 1st ride scoring 610 (beating mine and Mat’s score in Semis!) and took the win straight away, 2nd was Haley Mills and 3rd Courtney Kerin from NZ.

Today is the 8 Ball Kayak Race where we race 4 at a time over a short distance with other paddlers paddling at you in body armour trying to stop/ destroy you, qualifiers just been and I made the cut  Finals later.

It’s a good time here and nice to get into competing for this season/ meet up with friends I haven’t seen for a while. Bit frustrated to not show my best but some good fire to get me training harder as we have European Champs in Lienz, Austria in just a few weeks.

I fly home tomorrow and drive straight out to Lienz so really looking forward to getting to work on my paddling there.

bye for now,

Pringle

(Photos of myself thanks to Steve Gould/ Chewy)