World Cup 2 – Quarters & Semi Finals

This was the toughest day of the event for the men with both Quarterfinals and Semi finals in the same day.

It was tough to make top 10, the cut was about 1800 for 2 rides, which is much higher than Worlds was 1 year ago…but for the top 5 it was even harder. We have pretty much all the same competitors as in Worlds but now Dane and Quim are seniors too. Also Tomas Andrassy from Slovakia, Bartosz and Tomasz from Poland have all became a very strong competitors and are paddling on a top level too.

There are now more than 5 paddlers capable of pulling off an over 1000points ride here.

The hardest thing for me is balancing between scoring a good ride but not pushing too hard on my broken bone I came in 8th in the morning, feeling very pleased to make the semi finals. Peter just stole the top spot from Dane again closely followed by Quim.

In the Semi finals we all knew it was going to be a ride of over a 1000 needed at least to make Finals. This time Dane had one of the sickest rides I’ve ever seen (1350) to get 1st ahead of Peter who was 2nd, Quim 3rd, Stephen 4th and myself 5th with 1066points!!!

European contingent is looking strong, with 3 paddlers making the finals. Now its one day off to recover and rest before its time to really throw down properly on Saturday

Results: - http://www.freestylekayaking2013.com/pdfs/results/MensSemiFinalsResultsPigeon.pdf

In the Junior Men’s, Bren had rides in prelims that would have put him 3rd in the Men’s and almost two times ahead of the other Juniors… he looked on fire, getting two trophy moves in his ride even.

Today he was up again in the Semi’s and as expected easily won with 1053 in one ride with USA’s Hunter Katich going very big to get 700points and 2nd place. Also making the finals was GBR’s Brandon Hepburn in 4th place.

Results: - http://www.freestylekayaking2013.com/pdfs/results/JuniorMensK1semiResultsPigeon.pdf

 

In the Women’s Prelims Katya did very good making the cut for the Semi finals. Claire O’Hara from GBR got 1st in the prelims followed by Ruth Gordon, Nina Csonkova and Emily Jackson.

Results:- http://www.freestylekayaking2013.com/pdfs/results/WomensK1prelimResultsPigeon.pdf

Semi Finals was today and Claire O’hara was looking strong, taking the 1st place again! Katya did very good rides with Entry moves, Phonics and a Loops, everyone was pretty sure she would make the cut but judges thought differently so she ended up 7th missing the cut by 30 points.

Results: - http://www.freestylekayaking2013.com/pdfs/results/WomensK1SemiResultsPigeon.pdf

 

We’re both happy with how we did today and ready for a rest day tomorrow, as it’s no water releasing. It’s such a good feature here, one of the best holes we’ve ever paddled, finals should be very interesting. I’m really hoping to recover a bit and be able to show my best.

Finals TV will be streamed live from:- http://www.ustream.tv/channel/h2o

Pringle