As I´m preparing to fly to London for the annual
SAS Hurley Classic I remembered that I still had this summary of the 2015 Kayak Freestyle Worldchampionship on my computer! I started this write-up while waiting for my plane at the Montreal-Airport (!) - so quite some time ago - and finished it over the last few weeks. Here you go:
2015 ICF Freestyle Kayak Worldschampionship
The 2015
Freestyle Kayak Worldchampionship has ended – so it´s time for a
recapitulation!
I´ve benn to
Canada for 2 weeks and 2 days now and I´m now sitting at Pierre
Elliot Trudeau Airport in Montreal with a few hours till my plane
will leave.
When I
arriving in Canada over 2 weeks ago I was surprised by how hot and
humid the weather was here – I´d expected it to similar to our
weather at home. I stayed in Montreal to paddle at the famous Habitat
57 wave in the St. Laurent river – and that was a very good
decision! Almost no queue in the eddy, very friendly surfers and warm
weather and water! This wave is just beautiful – with a green
shoulder but a big foam-pile so you can throw any move there!
The city
itself is beautiful too – especially the old quarters where my
hotel was is really nice! Good food, nice scenery, street art on
every corner in the artistic district, the quartier des spectacles –
just perfect.
After 2 days
of surfing Habitat 67 I left Montreal to head to the Ottawa riverfor
the official training – I arrived just in time for our first
official team training slot on Sunday afternoon. After checking in at
Wilderness Tours, the event organizer, camp-ground and party-location
all in one, I drove to the put in for the Lorne rapid. This rapid has
a few different faces – depending on the time of the year and the
water level: in summer with low water levels the wave forming there
is called Garburator – and there is definitely a reason to this
name! In spring when the water level is about 2 meters higher about
150 meters downstream of “Garb” forms another wave – big and
intimidating: it´s called Buseater or Mini-Bus, depending on the
level! This was the site of the 2007 Kayak Freestyle
Worldchampionship and definitely a place I´d like to come back to
see in its full glory!
As our time
slot was the last official on sunday I stayed on the water for the
open training session to paddle a bit longer. Garburator is a very
unique feature and needs some time to get used to and adopt to the
speed of the wave and foam-pile on top of it!
With one hour
daily official training for about 22 paddlers time on the wave was
precious – we mostly didn´t get more than 5 rides so we had to get
on the water during the open training session – which were from 5pm
till 9am. During daylight the eddy was usually crowded so the
organizers put lights up to make it possible to paddle in the night
also – I decided to go out early in the morning and found that the
line-up in the eddy was OK around 6am!
Paddling here
reminded me a little bit of Uganda: the water is a lot warmer here
than it is at home, so most of the times I paddled short-sleeved!
During this
first week more and more paddlers from all over the world arrived and
the river and eddy buzzed with activity. It was good to meet people
again I hadn´t seen for almost 2 years – since the last
Worldchampionship in North Carolina! Catching up with friends from
near and far, cheering each other on while paddling – the kayaking
community is not that big, so we know each other and the mood is
always very amicable!
I took loads
of pictures during training but also during the competition – here
are a few selected:
Doug "Shreddog" Cooper
George Heyworth Hill
Claire O´hara
James "Pringle" Bebbington
Mireia Serres
Part of Team Uganda: Amina and David
Hugo Anthony
Raphael Scheu
Katya Kulkova
Adrienne Levknecht
Emily Ward
Overview of the "Garb"
Team of Judges and Officials
Team GB coach Dennis Newton with Adam Ramadan and James Ibbotson
Adam Ramadan
Dane Jackson
Kalob Grady
Sam Ward
Bren Orton
Raphael Scheu
Charly Brackpool
Hugo Anthony
Claire O´hara
Quim Fontane
Bren Orton
When the
competition drew closer I felt like I could have used a few more days
if not weeks to tap into my full potential – but that´s how it
goes: you could always use more time ahead of competition!
The night
before the opening ceremony I went to Cobden for the Cobden Fair with
Dee and Alex – on one hand to catch up with those two amazing
people and on the other to see what a fair is like over here! And
it´s definitely something you need to see when you are in Canada or
the US! Though I guess once is enough! The had a demolition derby but
not only with patched up cars but also with combine harvesters –
really bizarre!
The next day
the opening ceremony took place at Beachburg, a closeby town in the
Whitewater Region – yes, that´s what it´s called! The procession
through the small town was very interesting – from harvesting
machines to old canoes made from bark to typical American oldtimer
cars!
After the
usual speeches and a few presentations of local customs we got and
amazing dinner – the best roast-beef I´ve had in a long time!
So the Worlds
were officially opened!
First
competition was the squirt boat class – a unique form of kayaking
and probably the origin of modern freestyle kayaking! It was to be
held in a single day, because the location, an eddy-line called
Smoothie was on an island in the middle of nowhere! The crowd
consisted mainly of friends and family of the participants and the
other paddlers who came out to support them!
What we got
to see was really amazing: highest-scoring ride in the women and also
the men´s class and the longest downtime in both classes at an ICF
worldchampionship!!
This spot –
Smoothie – is also the location for the Jimmy-Cup: the
worldchampionship for “downtime”! The paddlers use the same
squirt boats – but the goal is to use the currents on the eddy line
to go underwater as long as possible!
Claire O´hara after taking home her 4th consecutive victory!
On Tuesday
the it was time for the surface boats to start the competition!
First up was
the OC1 class followed by the Junior Ladies and Men!
After that we
had our training session, which was one of the better sessions I had
– only few people on the water, a good friend joining me on the
water – just good times!
Wednesday was
going to be an important day: K1Men preliminaries!
I was up in
Heat 7 together with Marcel. Heat 7 meant I had to wait for my turn
till about 3pm – quite a long time if you´re eager to go out there
and put throw out some good rides!
After
sleeping a little longer and having a nice breakfast I made my way to
the parking lot to listen to some music, make some light lunch and
read. After finishing a book I geared up and walked up to the river,
crossed it and joined Brendan on the far side to watch the other
paddlers for a short while. Before my heat finally started there was
a small break so I had a lot of time to get through boat-control
(officials making sure you´re using the the same kayak throughout
the competition) and do my warm-up on the water.
I was the 8th
paddler in the heat so I watched the others before having my first
go!
Marcel had a
really nice first ride with three more to come as this was a
wave-feature (in contrary to a hole feature where we only get 2 rides
in the preliminaries).
When it was
my turn I didn´t feel overly nervous – just really excited to
paddle at the Worldchampionship once again!
It felt
really good competing on the Garberator Wave – a really powerful
feature! I was content with my first two rides. I could hear the
announcers when in the eddy – unfortunately I missed the scores for
my own rides! The third was quite OK too but I unfortunately flushed
on my last ride – but as only the top 2 scores are counted that was
ok.
My teammate
Marcel´s runs were very consistent and from what I heard on the
water he would make it to the quarterfinals!
After my
rides I got off the water and joined Brendan to watch the last heat.
The officials had to speed to proceedings up due to an incoming
thunderstorm which actually hit just when the last paddler left the
wave – a really close call as the wind picked up quite fast and
within a few seconds the rain was coming at us horizontal and thunder
was cracking all around us! Luckily the the technical crew managed to
secure all equipment and all the spectators left the bleachers before
the storm! Brendan and myself escaped over a small arm of the river
into a nice rock-cave to wait the storm out.
And after
about 30 minutes the sun was out again – according to Brendan
something very common on the Ottawa river!
After
paddling over the river I checked the scores – and I was appalled!
190 points in
my first and 181 in my second – that was far from what I had
expected and even further from what I had hoped to achieve!
All the
resentment I felt after the last Worldchampionship in North Carolina
came up again and dulled the excitement about being on the Ottawa
paddling with the best of the best!
Shortly
afterwards one of the judges – Trevor from Montreal, who I spent
some time with during this trip - asked me how it went, but by then I
was already over the disappointment and answered accordingly: It did
not go as I had wished but that I could definitely see some
improvement over the last Worldchampionship two years ago. He
actually laughed and said, that this attitude was typical for us
Europeans and that the Americans were totally different!
Luckily Dee
Paterson took some photos of me – thank you very much Dee!!!
Here they are:
And a few more by Philip Robert - thanks Philip!
And here´s a nice one from the Smoothy Eddy (were the Squirt-Boat competition took place and I put in to paddle the McCoy - rapid below and surf the 2 waves at the end of that rapid, taken by Alex Edwards
From all the
people watching live in Canada and friends and family watching on the
internet at home I got mainly positive feedback – something quite
in a big contrast to what I actually scored.
So after
returning to Wilderness Tours I checked the days livestream and
watched my first two rides: On some of the moves I didn´t have the
right angle, but some were definitely under-scored by the judges.
Probably due to the angle the judges had on to the wave, cause on the
video camera positioned upstream I definitely did Panams – only not
getting them scored.
Still, seeing
how my moves looked I wished I had had more time to work on them –
especially on the backwards moves, as I rarely got the angles or the
timing right!
So another
lesson learned, a little wiser and more experienced I set out to
enjoy the rest of the competition and cheers fellow paddlers and
friends on.
The rest of
the Competitions went by in a blur! I saw some of the craziest rides
I´ve ever seen on a wave! In some classes there were surprises on
the podium in others “the usual suspects” did it again!
Here´s the
top 3 in every category with a short comment:
Squirt Women
1. Claire
O´hara
2. Hitomi
Takaku
3. Motoko
Ishida
In quite
impressive manner Claire claimed here 4th consecutive
title as female Squirt Boat Worldchampion! It was impressive to watch
those ladies perform at Big Smoothie and see Claire changing between
paddle, hand-paddles and no paddles for her victory lap – just
amazing stuff!
And the Jez
proposing to Claire in the eddy after she took cold – nice call
there Jez!
Squirt Men
1. Stephen
Wright
2. Clay
Wright
3. Ben White
Stephen was
actually on a reserve spot for the team – but the battle between
him and Clay was crazy to watch! It was also good to see Ben come out
of retirement to compete at the same spot where he took the
Worldchampionship-Title in 2009!
A shame that
my friend Alex, who´s reigning European Champion didn´t get his
misterymoves as he wanted – still a great performance and I´m sure
he learned a lot on this trip and will be back for next Worlds!
Alex Edwards
Well, OC1 is
a special class – big open boats, but those guys where throwing
Pistol Flips!
OC1
1. Andrew
Hill
2. Dane
Jackson
3. Brad
McMillan
Well, OC1 is
a special class – big open boats, but those guys where throwing
Pistol Flips!
K1 Junior Women
1. Sage Donnelly
2. Darby McAdams
3. Sophie McPeak
K1 Junior Men
1. Hugo
Anthony
2. Alec
Voorhees
3. Hugo Scott
Hugo Scott
was leading after the semifinals, but my bet was Hugo Anthony – he
paddled so well in the trainings I watched, and he pulled it off in
the Final too! Those guys still have a long way to go – but the
Hugo´s are some paddlers we´ll see for many more years to come!
C1
1. Dane
Jackson
2. Seth
Chapelle
3. Zachary
Zwanenburg
Dane did it!
After his 3rd place at the Nantahala two years ago he now
managed to paddle to the top – he just seems to be the universal
paddler!
K1 Women
1. Emily
Jackson
2. Hitomi
Takaku
3. Claire
O´hara
This class
was quite open till the end – Claire just sneaked through to the
Semi- and then Finals, but Emily was just the more consistent
paddler! Hitomi paddled really well but ended up in 2nd
place again! Those ladies definitely gave their best – but I´ve
seen bigger scoring rides and there´s still a lot to come!
K1 Men
1. Dane
Jackson
2. Mathieu
Dumoulin
3. Nick
Troutman
K1 Men –
that was just insane! Already in the Semifinals the scores were high
and very close together. Dane sitting in only the 2nd
place pulled of a crazy first ride – which put him into leading
position. The others tried again and again to beat Dane´s high-score
but couldn´t get their perfect rides! Then Dane pulled out an even
higher scoring ride with only Nick to take the victory away! After 2
not so good rides there was a lot of pressure on Nick´s shoulders –
this also being his homespot where he grew up – he stepped up his
game and placed third in the end!
My two
personal favorites – Quim and Bren – ended up 4th and
5th, not being able to repeat the rides they had shown
earlier in the competition.
All in all
the level of the competition was amazing, the level pushed farther
up, everyone getting more and more professional! And all this with a
perspective towards K1Women and K1Men class having a chance to become
Olympic disciplines!
So there are
very interesting times ahead of us!
Personal
résumé:
Regarding the
location – the mighty Ottawa river – this was the best
competition I´ve been to so far. And the general mood was great –
everybody being so hospitable and friendly. And the sportsmanship was
great too!
But the
organisation was the worst I´ve ever experienced! The updates on the
schedule were scarce and sometimes nobody at all knew about the
events that should take place - I´m thinking of the closing ceremony here: with a notice about 15 minutes before it actually started all the athletes were supposed to be there in the team-outfits! So quite a big part didn´t show up at all! Which is a shame as the ceremony itself was good with nice fireworks to close the games!
And the
thing that annoyed me most was the commentators – except Jez who
did a good job!
But the
others were calling wrong moves and this was far from
“Worldchampionship-worthy” in my opinion – and I´ve done this
a few times myself! And if you are announcing during an international competition you should at least try to get the names right! And at some point I also felt it was a bit unfair that some people could hear their scores in-between the rides and others could not, so some where given an advantage- unintended of course - but an advantage still. I think there need to be more precise rules about the "live-scoring" during events like worldchampiobships: that there needds to be a screen perfectly visible for athletes on and off the water and for the coaches too! With regard to all the technical gear they brought in for the competition one screen more shouldn´t have mattered!
In the end it was another great experience and memory for a lifetime and another lesson learned!
Here´s all the linksto the photos I took:
Supported by
