the Final day in Thun

Wall to wall blue bird sky, with searing early Autumn sunshine made for what is a change maker. The older generation finally fell to the youth, and like father handing on the baton to the son, its all change at the top of the World Freestyle arena with Jackson Kayaks and the Jackson family ringing the changes. American Emily Jackson won K1W, along with her husband Canadian Nick Troutman in K1M, younger brother Dane was 2nd in the Juniors and their Father, EJ was 2nd in the Mens.

The exception to the Jackson kayak whitewash was the Junior ladies, where Nouria Newman from France true to form stole the show. After her winning ride she gave us a glimpse of her potential, we saw an air screw and helix, both with big air. In the OC1 Jeremy Laucks from the US continued his dominance of this event by sweeping the gold medal. Stephan Pätsch from Germany gave Jeremy some late pressure, however the American managed to stay on the wave and perform even when his boat was swamped.

In the Junior Mens, favourite and smooth styler Jason Craig produced the goods on his first run, to ensure it was plain sailing. Although Jason’s score was not so high, the big occasion got to fellow American Dane Jackson and Sebastien Devred from France, who not until the final round managed to bring the medals to their door. Still the consistence of Jason Craig, who trains in Reno on the new white water course, made him the one to beat, and alas with such a strong opening ride, the competition was placed in the shade.

The ladies saw a lot tighter race, with Mariann in the Semi’s finalling breaking into the one two duel of Emily Jackson and Ruth Gordon. From the off this contest was a twist and turn affair, where none of the paddlers were getting the rides of the earlier rounds, and the all too big scoring moves, when attempted were not executed well. Tanya Faux, Ruth Gordon and Mariann Sæther kept us on the edge of our seats, with patchy performances. Not until the second round did Emily lay claim to the title with a solid aerial blunt filled ride, whilst Tanya managed some big air moves to secure second place. Both Ruth and Mariann left it to the last, Ruth pulled a big ride out of the hat, and pushed Tanya into thrid, and Mariann, under all the pressure of having to delivery in one ride, fell short. Mariann’s last ride was all guns a blazing, a wonderful donkey flip and aerial blunt combo, then another blunt, and a huge surge from the wave came. With the surge, a big pop from the boat, a huge air screw seamed likely, and Mariann paused, then went, and that pause was slightly too late, a flaw in the move. Deep the boat went and then out of the wave, there was no medal for Mariann in Thun.

In the C1′s, the hot shot of the class Guillaume LaRue from Canada was having a bad day, his rides fell well short of the sort we’d seen earlier in the week, and as a result, the title was up for anyone. The UK’s Dave Bainbridge, took the finals by the neck and delivered a wonderful display of off side air blunts, both front and back, and his willingness to go for the big air secured him the Championship. Alexandre Besseau with huge and loud crowd support, brought France yet another medal, this time a Bronze. Guillaume LaRue did manage a reasonably solid ride, but without his normal air screw move, and the big points this move bring to place him ahead of the pack, it was silver for the Canadian.

The blue ribbon event, the mens final proved to be a pivotal moment for freestyle, with the eyes of the ICF and President of the IOC looking on, the coming of age for this sport was very apparent. In the first round, Nick Troutman ran through his two air screws to the right then to the left routine, a helix here, flip turn there, huge air back blunts, and then the pistol flips, to hit a score of in excess of 1500 in one ride. A score of this order is seldom seen, especially in competition and very rarely ever matched, the gold was for certain after this one ride, always going to Canada. Nick’s Father in law, Eric EJ Jackson, Four times World Champion fired up all the competition expertise and precision he could and managed his highest score of the event, a 900 to take silver. American Stephen Wright, threw everything at his rides and grabbed the bronze.

This was the style of competition the event organisers could have hoped for, massive high end performances, set in a world class wave and a great host town in the heart of the mountain’s, the place for white water kayaking. Thun 2009 was by far the best kayak event I have ever been too, excellently managed, all the side shows inclusive and the vibe through the two weeks truly wonderful, well done Thun, well done Simon Hirter the organiser.

PS, I got to paddle in the Legends Session with Olli Grau, Clay Wright, Arnd Schäftlein and Richard Fox, what a great morning paddle on the Thun wave, happy days indeed.