Youth Freestyle – Llangollen

Palm/Dagger Europe are once again involved in sponsoring the Youth Freestyle series for 2009. The first event at Llangollen took place under bright sunshine and blue skies, unfortunately this also meant extremely low water levels with very few places to get any verticality for the freestyle competition.

The organisers made the most of the features that were available though and chose a number of places for the river workshops, one of which included a ‘throwline workshop’.

The freestyle competition in the afternoon took place in 2 different features and a whole variety of moves were seen from all abilities and all age groups. Extra points were awarded in the ‘middle stopper’ for those who let go of their paddles on one side and caught them again on the other.

Dagger is sponsoring the 2009 downriver races which follow on from the freestyle competition. The first of the Dagger Downriver series kicked off with great entertainment for both the paddlers and the onlookers as some heats involved a variety of different starts (including one heat of under 18s having to complete a flatwater loop before racing downstream) and many paddlers made it to the bottom of the river either ‘deckless’ or ‘paddleless’.

One of the 15 and under river-running heats who were lucky enough to finish the race in their boats with both a deck and a paddle!

The winners of the heats of the Dagger Downriver were then put head to head in a ‘throwline competition’ and the most accurate thrower took the race win.

As always, huge numbers of spot prizes were handed out to those that showed the greatest enthusiasm or best entertainment for the spectators and there were both medals and prizes for the winners of each category. The next event takes place at the Nene on 14th June – check www.youthfreestyle.co.uk for details.