Helliwelli Kayak Freestyle 2014

Yesterday, Saturday the 19. of July the annual Kayak Freestyle competition took place in Wildalpen at the infamous Helliwelli!

The weather was perfect, the crowd was quite big and Helli Graf, the organizing team (Linda, Elvira, Alex) and all the volunteers did an awesome job to make the event a full success!

Only the river was a bit low - but´s that´s how it goes in summer...

I had a few training runs with my KCG-colleagues Clemens and Philipp - those 2 guys have been training hard in the last few months and I had a feeling that they could actually beat me on that day!

Philipp actually had great runs - he even made the Semifinals! His Phonics Monkeys are just insane!!!

I was and am still recovering from a gastroenteritis I got in Spain so I felt tired and slow.

The training was not too bad - the spot is quite shallow on the left side but OK on the right shoulder - but I managed to crack the stern of my kayak in one of the loops (there´s some work waiting for me now...).

In the competition itself I paddled far from what I hoped to do - there´s some serious training waiting for me before I go to the European Championships in Bratislava...

I just have to fit it between oncoming work and myself moving into a new apartment and so on...

Maybe the pressure helps ;)

Marcel, who´s has been to the World Cup too did a great job and managed to jump onto the podium in his last ride in the finals! Well done Marcel!

So Marcel took the title of Styrian Champ again, followed by Philipp Windischbacher and Clemens Gastgeber. Congratulations guys - good job!

So Matthias Zeiner and I have some work to do to catch up with those guys if we want to stay in 3rd and 2nd place of the Austrian Freestyle Championship!

Here are some pics from the Ladies and Mens K1 Finals:

Overview of the venue!

Lucie Spindlerova

Corinna Rebnegger

Elli Dirninger

Denis Rebnegger

Andrea Kaspers

Linda Künstl doing the Commenting and interviewing Philipp Windischbacher!

Mr. DJ Fabian Quassthoff

Marcel Bloder

Stepan Vorhadsky

Peter Csonka

Bartosz Czauderna

Jan Spindler

Now it´s Oli Hirsch on the microphone while Martin Koll´s watching the finals!

ICF Freestyle World Cup Resume!

After 2 days of driving through Spain, France and Italy I´m back home in Austria and it´s time to recall the past 4 weeks!

I set off to the first Austrian competition in Lienz more then 4 weeks ago and till then I´ve been paddling quite a lot but I´ve been in my car driving around Europe even longer!

What I always seem to forget when going to one of those big events – the longer you are “on tour” the shorter your actual paddling time gets!

I still had lot´s of training time while in St. Pierre de Bouef and even in the first days in Millau, but once the official training schedules start it´s a few runs a day only!

I still had an amazing experience during those events!

Millau – the Natural Games where huge!

Here´s some pictures by professional photographer http://www.gregalric.com/sport

http://www.naturalgames.fr/en-gb/photos/ng2014.aspx

Then we moved on to Catalonia for the second worldcup – we had an amazing opening ceremony with drummers and fire breathers and all kind of fireworks – all of which would have been illegal in Austria!

I unfortunately got distracted before my rides and didn´t paddle at my best – so I took loads of pictures – here are a few more shots:

Emma Witherford - future of british freestyle!

Tom Dolle - future of french freestyle ;)

Charlie Brackpool - and again... ;)

The Judges Team!!!

Big thank you to you guys!

Nicky Beeby

Rob Crowe

Quim Fontané

Dane Jackson

Then the final stage of the 2014 ICF Freestyle World Cup!

A totally different playspot and a new task for me: to comment during the event!

There were to be a few other people to comment – and I can tell you we´ve had a blast!

Thanks for the awesome time Jacko Jackson, Courtney Kerin, Fred Lascourrèges, Quim Fontané, Zachary Zwanenburg, Bartosz Czauderna and Dane Jackson.

The longer we did it the better we became – we had a daily briefing with Jacko and after that we went for it! It was amazing watching all those amazing paddlers try their best in that feisty playspot from the first row!

And we saw a lot of 0-50 point rides – even by the top paddlers!

So my expectations for my 2 rides were not to high – and I managed to not drop out of the competition with 0 points!

After that I went straight back to commenting!

To the credit of the top paddlers – the scores were getting higher and higher – Sebastien Devred even cracked the 1000 points!

Unfortunately he broke his paddle in the final and didn´t perform as good with a borrowed one!

The finals where to be on Saturday – Squirt Boaters, Juniors, C1 and OC1 in the afternoon and the K1 Women and Men in the evening with floodlights!

It was an amazing atmosphere! The grand stands where packed with people and quite a lot of Frenchies who were cheering for Marlene, Sebastien and Matthieu.

The lightshow was incredible and I think we did quite a good job commentating for the crowd and for the livestream!

Quim talked in Catalan, Fred in French and myself in English – to keep everyone satisfied!

In between we had interviews with the winners by Paul Cheesy Robertson.

And then after the Medal Ceremony everybody was waiting for the big fireworks!

And it was stunning! I´ve never before seen something quite like it!

Please excuse the minor quality and the lack of sound - my mobile phone obviously didn´t record sound...

So those 4 weeks have been amazing!

Thanks to all the wonderful people I´ve met and with whom I´ve been travelling!

Nicky, Emma, Rob, Charlie and Nod - you make awesome camping companions!

Team New Zealand - Courtney and Jason - and Jakob you make awesome room mates!

Thanks to everyone for the awesome time!

I´ve learned a lot - and as Den said: It´s all a preparation for the European Championship in a few weeks!

See you there! ;)

And here a few pics from the drive through the Pyrenees back home:

 Last view to the town of Sort

Early morning in the Pyrenees!

As you might have seen I tweaked the layout of my blog a little bit - thanks for the inspiration
Emma Witherford