Just off the mountain after one of the most exhilarating days at a Slalom Worlds in my memory. My voice is hoarse from cheering, making writing the ideal activity especially as I’m writing my post from the end of the local Brewery’s wooden table surrounded by some of the World’s top paddlers. This group of paddlers have fully embraced whitewater competition in any discipline. Paddlers like Nouria Newman, FRA, who three weeks ago became the first woman to run Site Zed on the Stikine River, BC as well as being Whitewater Grand Prix, Freestyle, and Slalom medallist; Vavra Hradilek, CZE, last year’s gold medallist, Narrows of the Green and Sickline racer, and Mike Dawson, NZ and Olympic finalist, multiple Sickline, and Little White champion; Jiri Prskavec, Vit Prindis; the list goes on. The energy was high, fresh off the day’s racing.
And great racing there was. First it was watching the K-1 Women compete over two heats on the same course as yesterday. For women, the formula for success on this course seemed to be not to fight the water with aggression. Instead, it was the athlete that paddled smoothly, placed their boat with very distinct strokes, and changing their cadence in-between gates that produced the fast times. Being clean (not touching a gate) was key to placing in the top 30.
All three boats from the nations of GER, CZE, FRA, AUT, and AUS moved on to the semis, lead by former World Champion Maialen Chourraut of Spain who set the fastest time of the day of 111.45 seconds. Sadly the Canadian and USA paddlers didn’t lay down a run fast enough to move on to Sunday’s semi-finals.
Next up was my favourite class to watch in slalom, the C-2 Men. To me this boat is ballet on water, demanding co-ordinated team work only possible through much practise time with your partner. Last minute decisions must come through reflex, as the speed of the course doesn’t allow any time for discussion. For success, it seemed the important goal was to ensure both heads passed through the gate line. Secondly, it was to avoid getting a touch. 8 or the 38 pairs had clean runs. The French excel in C-2, taking the first three spots. Close behind are the CZE, GER and SVK. I was pleased to see the USA team of Devon McEwen / Casey Eichfeld nailing it in their second run to claim ninth place.
My vantage point today was from the inside of the scoring tent, as I was able to complete my ICF Officials’ credentials. This has given me a bigger appreciation of how accurate the judging, scoring and timing is. It is the video analysis that impressed me the most. Every paddler is captured on video, catalogued and judged by the analyst. In the semis and finals, the video judge’s call counts equal to the judges out on course.
We went for a bike ride around Wisp Mountain over the mid-day break taking advantage of the course change gap, returning for the semi-finals in K-1 Men. Best seat in the house was the Grand Stand at mid-course where you could see from gate 3 to 18. The remainder could be seen on the two jumbo screens. Venue announcers filled us in on the background of each athlete as well as split times. As only the top ten make it to finals, this race was edge-of-your-seat excitement. The fastest time was set early on by Russian paddler, Pavel Eigel; 104.49. The crowd cheered loudest for home turf favourites including the 24th paddler to start being Ben Hayward of Canada. Ben’s run started extremely well with the fastest split up to gate 9 upstream. Here a boil didn’t allow Ben to get his head through the gate line, so he had to do ‘a ringle’ and renegotiate costing him valuable seconds. Still his raw time ended up 3rd fastest of the day. Penalties and judges call for a 50 cost Ben his chance to be in the finals. The first American paddler down the course was Michal Smolen who had an immense amount of pressure on him to perform, being the current U23 World champion. A clean run, with brilliant moves saw him just miss out on a top ten by 1.2 seconds. Bib 16 was local favourite Ricky Powell who paddled to perfection on his home course. He laid down a clean run with no obvious errors and a time of 106.33 giving him an impressive 16th place finish. The final hope for the USA came down to the new American, former French athlete and Olympic medallist Fabien Levevre. And he delivered, securing the 10th position.
The Top 10 for tomorrow’s finals are: Lucien Delfour, AUS; Sebastian Schubert, GER; Boris Neveu, FRA; Mathieu Biazizzo, FRA; Sebastien Combot, FRA; Mateusz Polaczyk, POL; Thomas Bersinger, ARG; Giovanni de Gennaro, ITA; Pavel Eigel, RUS; Fabien Levevre, USA.
Claudia Kerckhoff-van Wijk is a ten time Canadian Slalom champion, 5th 1979 Worlds in Jonquiere, Bronze medallist in Slalom, and owner of Madawaska Kanu Centre and OWL Rafting.
