Kayakin´Tom: 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: