Worlds photos

I finally got a few of the photos taken of the worlds so thought I would post a few up.
All photos thanks to Adrian Durrant

First week back paddling

This was my first week back paddling after the worlds. I gave it a week or 2 to recover from the various minor pains etc after 2 weeks of solid paddling! Even my elbow injury seems mostly recovered though I still have to wear a bandage.

I spent 3 days canoe camping around Strangford lough in the North. The weather was perfect for it with plenty of sunshine, clear skies and little rain. The only problem was the strong enough tides in the area I was paddling in! Strangford was rich with wildlife, there was seals and various seabirds everywhere though spotting a black swan was a very wierd experience. I would love to know how that ended up there.
I then moved up to the North coast for a day of surfing at whiterocks in my C1 playboat. The surf was pretty clean for most of the day with waves between 4 and 8ft depending on what part of the beach you surfed on. The only problem was occasionally the waves dumped resulting in some very long and deep wipeouts, the C1 does not have the speed to power through waves meaning I got hit much more than usual. I wish I had brought one of the squirt boats with me, it has been a long time since I surfed in one and it is nice having the ability to duck-dive and carve almost as well as the surfers.

Today I went down for the session planned on the sluice, it was planned as a freestyle development day with free coaching and was great craic with instruction happening and music at the feature. Having 3 C1 paddlers there for a change was also nice.
Now all that remains is getting the new squirt boat out somewhere decent and getting some downtime!

End of the worlds

The freestyle worlds is unfortunately over :-(
All the medal ceremonies etc happened today along with all the finals for the various events. It is amazing how quickly everything just shuts up and ends. The boat store which had held hundreds of boats is now entirely empty and all the stalls were gone a matter of hours after close of play. It is very strange after 2 weeks of solid boating and competitions for it all to be over. The rafting high ender competition was good fun with team Ireland coming 4th. Unfortunately I missed the big air ramp due to having a stomach bug but saw the footage of the Irish guys throwing huge moves.

We did try to check out a seam that was rumoured to be within reach of thun as the competition squirt venue was not offering decent downtime. 4 of us went out to look at what seemed to be an amazing seam. It did turn out to be pretty decent offering up head under mysteries even for those of us using paddles but was too much hassle due to a complete lack of an eddy to be much fun. Looks like I will have to wait till I am home for some decent downtime. Its a pity as I quite enjoy confluence seams (my home spot is a confluence). The guys decided to name the spot wishful thinking as it is so close to being a good spot but just not quite good enough!

Anyway I should really start packing. We fly home in the morning unfortunately, I really don't want to go as the worlds has been a great experience and Switzerland itself is an amazing country. On the other hand some stress free boating with no competitions involved is certainly in order. Lets hope I get plenty in during the next few weeks.

worlds results

I am now finished competing in the worlds. I had a pretty poor go in the C1 event, however considering how difficult I was finding the wave and how much trouble I was having catching it I am happy enough with my performance.

In the squirt event I managed to make the semi finals, the only Irish competitor to do so! Overall I finished 9th. The finals are tomorrow so the top 5 places are yet to be decided.
Now all the less serious events get to be tried like the big air ramp and the rafting high ender etc. It is good being finished with the competing finally. It has been a tough few days running up to 4 training sessions a day and will be nice now to go kayaking without the stress of worrying how I am doing.
Anyway now I am free to celebrate! Having spent the last few nights going to bed early and watching what I am doing it will be nice to go out and have some fun and enjoy the rest of my paddling time in Switzerland.

Competing at last!

I just got off the water after a small night session. The queue is still ridiculous with 30 minute waits between goes on the wave. This is pretty crap for me as in the C1 I spend little time on the wave, I dont have the power to muscle my way onto the wave or to stay on it if I start flushing.

Today was the Senior men's K1 prelims with some pretty good rides from the Irish guys and some very loud supporting!

Unfortunately now I am quite tired, I had 4 sessions on the water yesterday 2 of which were C1 and 2 in squirt. This culminated in a midnight squirtboating session on the main wave which was great fun. Squirt boats did really well on the crappy green wave, its probably one of the most fun days of paddling I have had.

Anyway I am being sensible tonight and heading to bed early. I have a 10:25 heat tomorrow for the C1 event which is great as I can get it out of the way early with little faffing about. I compete in the squirt event on thursday at some stage.

Well done to our K1 lads for some great paddling in a very tough event today!

Worlds update

After a week at the worlds I finally have the time for a wee update.

The entire team is staying in steiffisburg just outside Thun. We got a pair of houses which are really nice and there is decent public transport into the City centre, it takes about 10 minutes on the bus. Our house even has a nuclear bunker for some reason! Apparently this used to be required by law but it was pretty funny to find. Apparently the swiss team is staying in one.
The weather is pretty hot, it was 34 degrees when I arrived in Switzerland and has gone up as high as 37, even at night it is very hot but seems to be cooling down in the last few days. Hopefully it will stay that way as paddling and sleeping in those kinds of temperatures is pretty difficult.

Thun itself is a lovely city, it is pretty small and does not seem to have changed much in hundreds of years. There is still ancient castles and churches everywhere and it is very close to the alps. The water is not that cold at all, I was expecting cold glacial melt but as it flows out of a lake it is warm enough. The water is crystal clear and the bottom and fish are easily visible! It is nice after years of paddling in brown peaty water in Ireland. There has been a lot of complaining about the wave. It seems to go completely green at times and is not particularly big or retentive which is a pity as the location is pretty much perfect with viewing stands and convenient boat storage. The big names are still throwing huge moves though.
It can be very difficult to get time on the wave, each team is allocated about 30-40 minutes on the wave to practice and outside of that it is very difficult to get any time as everyone wants to get used to such a difficult and changeable feature. Even at stupid times like 0400 there is still a queue of about 20-30 people waiting for a go meaning 20 minute gaps between rides. However some of the team have been lucky and gotten times when there is significantly less people on the water. I have yet to be so lucky!

I am personally really struggling with the wave and it is only in the last 2 days or so I have been able to consistently catch it. It is an offside ferry on which I found difficult to begin with as I have always been very weak at offside ferrygliding and combined with the speed of the water I was thrown completely. However now I have hopefully cracked it. I am also really struggling to stay on the wave after doing any moves. It seems for this wave anyway one of the new Jackson boats or a composite boat is the way to go. Anything else seems to be too slow to be practical. Anyone in slower designs is pretty much out of the game on this feature.

Thankfully I am having a bit more luck with the squirt event. The squirt feature is also pretty poor with no real downtime being offered up yet. Most of us are getting chest deep mysteries of only about 4-5 seconds. Some guys are going for longer but not very many. My new boat came over with the GB squirt boaters which is great. I was worried the boat might be a bit big but it seems to be a pretty good cut so no problems there! Its definitely a better boat than my old one for competition as the old one was difficult to throw around on flatwater. The new boat seems slightly harder to sink but is a much better allrounder. It is great seeing other squirt boaters on the water. In Ireland there is only maybe 4 or 5 regular squirt boaters and we are spread right across the country. Having 4 times that many in the one place is great! I am certainly learning lots off some of the other boaters.
Its a much nicer place to be than the main wave I think. Over at the squirt boating spot everyone is much friendlier and more helpful. At the main wave everything is governed by specific times and peoples training sessions whereas the squirt spot is open and people just come and go as they please.

Unfortunately I broke my helmet strap yesterday too. I now have it fixed but spent the day wearing a purple flowery sweet strutter borrowed from one of the GB girls. It looked and felt pretty silly and it feels good to have my own helmet back. I was glad of the lend though as It only broke literally 5 minutes before my scheduled training session.

Anyway I have to rush off to the squirt boating meeting as they are changing the rules slightly and want to meet the paddlers to get a consensus on it. I have some photos and will try to post them up once I get some more spare time.

Freestyle world championships

Tomorrow I head to Switzerland for the freestyle world championships. I am competing in the Squirt and C1 categories!
This will be my first time competing on an International level, I am very excited at the prospect of getting to compete at the worlds and can't wait to get over and start competing.

Unfortunately along the way I picked up tendonitis and combined with the lack of rain I have not been able to train for a few days so I am not quite as well prepared as I hoped to be by this stage. However I think it should be fine given plenty of Ice and painkillers.

Assuming I can find a decent computer/internet over there I will try to make a few updates over the next couple of weeks, hopefully with photos also.