Extremsportveko

Last week Team Palm paddlers Matt Tidy, Nick Horward, and Lowri Davies were in Voss for their annual extreme sports festival ‘Ekstremsportveko’

For one adrenaline fueled week long event, skydivers, BASE jumpers, skiers, bikers and kayakers from all over the world congregate in the small Norwegian town of Voss to go huge off cliffs, waterfalls, ramps and of course at the parties.

One of the highlights of the week is the Brandseth downhill, an individual sprint down a steep little river. This year the Brandseth had fantastic water levels, and the competition was fierce.

Amongst a big international field of competitors from Canada, US, Italy, Czech, Norway and UK,  Nick, Matt and Lowri and Palm sponsored Andy Phillips and Mike Abbot slogged it out through the prelims with Lowri winning a place in the Ladies finals and finishing an overall 2nd (and taking home a big Norwegian Cheque!) and Mike, Matt and Andy winning a place in the Mens finals and places of 3rd, 9th and 11th respectively.

After the sprint, teams of 3 had it, on the full length of the Brandseth over about 3kms of steep rapids and slides, locals Mike Abbott, Andy Phillips and Allan Ellard won top honors yet again this year.

The best thing about being in Voss though is the surrounding rivers and we all took time away from the crowds to go big on the huge Norwegian white water and ‘Foss’ (waterfalls)

Full results are here http://www.ekstremsportveko.com/?page=16&news=262

Results and video are here http://www.friflyt.no/index.php?pagenr=12&articlenr=57157

The next big race is the Sjoa River Festival, also in Norway, from the 15-19th July. It looks set to be massive, hopefully we’ll see some of you there.