Silver in Augsburg

The final World cup for 2010 has finished and I managed to race well throughout the weekend qualifying for the final in 3rd position. Many of the girls came unstuck in the final on the very tight and challenging course, including myself, but luckily it was enough to claim the silver behind Nanquin Chen of China. These were also the final positions for the overall World Cup rankings  with Jana Dukatova of Slovakia in 3rd position. The following are links for all results at the 3rd World Cup and for the latest overall World Cup rankings. 

Bronze at World Cup 2

I was able to make the most of the beautiful sun in Spain this week as I was only able to do 1 session this week due to a past shoulder injury flaring up again. Fortunately the rest and the large amount of time I spent training here last year were enough to get me through to claim the bronze medal. Well done to Jess Fox who claimed the gold in a great time only 5 seconds behind her K1 time (where she placed 14th!) Unfortunately Ros was not able to maintain her stella qualification and semi runs and finished in 6th position. Team Australia now begins the road trip back to Augsburg, Germany to compete in the final World Cup. Results from this weekends racing can be found here. 

Canoe Qualifications World Cup 1

The canoe qualification runs have been completed this morning and I have progressed to the semi finals in 3rd position behind Jess Fox and Nanqin Cen from China. My first run was solid however a choice to spin a combination at gate 6 proved costly in time and 2 touches further down the course put me into 3rd place. I managed to put down a faster and cleaner 2nd run, however it wasn't enough to advance me in the overall results. 

16 women competed this morning in the C1W with 7 athletes finishing within 3 seconds (raw time) of the leader! Great to see such tight racing in such a new event. Tomorrow the semi and finals will be contested on a VERY technical and difficult course. Visit this link for live results. Also, check out the interview with myself and Richard Fox here at Sportscene.

Sightseeing in Prague

We have been filling in the time between training sessions with a lot of sightseeing, team dinners and watching World Cup Soccer on the big screen in the centre square (hopefully with a better result next time!) Yann has finished designing the course for the World Cup and demonstrations will be held later tonight. 

World Cup 1 Preperations

The Australian team arrived in the Czech Republic on Saturday to prepare for the first World Cup. The course was flooded last week and the bottom third of the course has slowly been getting features back as the river continues to drop. After a solid day and a half fitting out my new boat it is finally done and looking very shmick indeed!

Preparations begin for Europe Trip 2010

Many months of hard training, racing, working and studying have been undertaken since our previous update late last year.  Selection for the Australian Team was very well contested this year, particularly in the Mens C2 class as many paddlers took advantage of the multiple class participation rule that was introduced in 2009. There were 4 very close crews battling it out for the 2 World Cup places and selection came down to a single penalty on the final run. 

Unfortunately in the final race the Guinea crew was bumped from their overall standing in 2^nd position, but will join Leanne in Europe in mid August to prepare for the World Championships.

Leanne will head over to Europe shortly to contest the 3 World Cup races before spending time training at the site of the World Championships in Slovenia.

Visit the following links for information on the upcoming international events:

World Cup 1 19^th & 20^th June; Prague, Czech Republic

World Cup 2 26^th & 27^th June; La Seu d’Urgell, Spain

World Cup 3 3^rd and 4^th July; Augsburg, Germany

World Championships 9^th – 12^th September Tacen, Ljubljana, Slovenia

2010 AUSCAS -The Annual Australian Canoeing Awards

The 2nd annual AUSCAS was celebrated in style with the canoeing community frocking and suiting up. It was a fantastic night with many awards and funny video footage. Remember to keep a list of all those funny quotes, tantrums and rock splats for next years awards!

HAPPY NEW YEAR

Team Guinea celebrated the New Year Sydney style this year by traveling down to the Harbor bridge to watch the Fireworks. The display was amazing and the number of people unbelievable! Hope everyone has a happy and safe 2010! 

Bradys Lake Training Camp

Team Guinea (minus Chris and Scott due to unforseen injury based circumstances) this week journeyed down to Bradys Lake in central Tasmania for a 5 day training camp on the site where National team selection will be held in March 2010.  We managed to complete 8 whitewater sessions over the 5 days and squeezed in some reading, relaxation and most importantly marshmallow toasting! 

Victorian Championships

The Australian racing season has started with the Victorian Championships last weekend. Some very tight racing transpired particularly in the mixed C2 category. With Scotty and Sarah claiming the win in the first run by a significant margin, Leanne and Chris decided to give anything a go to claim that Victorian title. Normally not seen in mixed C2, Leanne jumped in the back and Chris the front which worked well and gave them the win by only 2 seconds. It seems the mixed C2 title will be very fiercely fought for at the National Championships in January.

Other results from the Vic Champs included Chris and Scotty winning the Open men’s C2 class, Chris claiming the Open men’s K1 title and Leanne for Open Ladies C1 and K1.

Team Guinea also decided to make an appearance in t

he C1 team event together, where the starter had to remind us that it was not a race between all of us but rather a race between us and the other entrants. 

Unfortunately Team Guineas success at the Vic Champs was slightly marred by a minor injury on Saturday night. In a completely innocent camp game the members of the Guinea / Guinea C2 crew managed to collide into each other and unfortunately for Chris it seems that Scott’s head is harder than Chris’ nose. Needless to say the game ended promptly and has since resulted in Chris requiring surgery to maintain his claimed ‘beautiful looks’. Hopefully he will be back on the water asap.

New Team Guinea (+1) household!

Team Guinea has relocated to Penrith for the summer and are now proudly renting a house with Sarah Grant in South Penrith for the next 3 months to make the most of the whitewater facilities and coaching. The house is very nice (arguably too nice for a paddlers pad) and even has lights in the kitchen cupboards! 

World Championship Video

The ICF has made a site that has all of the video of the semi, final and team runs at the World Championships. Check it out here.

GOLD SILVER AND BRONZE at the WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS!!!

After getting a 50 second penalty on my semi final run I was ranked in 7th position heading into the final, Ros in 4th and Jess ranked 1st! I put down a run which I was very happy with on the difficult course despite hitting the last gate and finished on 137.80 with the GOLD! At the time Carolin Loir of France thought she had finished in 2nd place however a late 50 second penalty was added to her time moving her into 8th position. Ros Lawrence (AUS) finished in 2nd place on 143.10 and Jess Fox rounded out the 1, 2, 3 Aussie domination on 145.41. For all the results check out the ICF webiste  

Earlier, the 3 Aussie C1W used the forerun for a practice teams run for next years World Championships. Fortunately for us... and disappointingly for the crowd there was next to no carnage and  the Aussie girls finished clear ahead of the field of 4 by over 50 seconds. 

Now Team Guinea heads home for a few weeks of rest and relaxation before starting off the new season. 

Qualifications over!

In the women's C1 event today, Leanne finished with 2 good but dirty runs placing her in 2nd position heading into semis behind Teng of China. Ros and Jess finished 3rd and 14th respectively meaning all 3 Aussies advance to the semi finals which will be held on Sunday. 

Unfortunately it was a tough day in the office for the other Australians today with Rob (22) missing out on semis by 0.06 and Will (24) by 0.4 seconds. Both Warwick (35) and Ian (30) were pushed out of the top 20 cut off due to a penalty. Other Australian results included Sam Lyons (51) and Robin Jeffrey (47). 

Tomorrows racing consists of Teams - at which Leanne, Ros and Jess will be doing a forerun prior to the start of racing. 

Chris and Scott were the first Australian boat off in the World Championships and showed everyone the massive improvements they have made over the past year since beginning C2. They had 2 very solid runs down the course unfortunately picking up a few penalties which put them out of the top 20 cut off. The boys finished in 31^st position and they have definitely benefited from the opportunity and experience.

Sarah and Kate put in 2 fast second runs to make it through to the semi finals on Sunday. Today the rest of the Australian team will be racing in the K1, C1 and C1W events.

World Championships 2009

The World Championships kicked off last night with the opening ceremony march through town followed by some interesting entertainment - suspended guitarists being raised and lowered and girls twirling suspended only by their hair. 

The racing starts this afternoon with the LK1 and C2 heats, with the MK1, C1 and C1W off tomorrow morning. For information and results check out the World Championship website. 

Inaugural World Championships Coaches Run

Who is the fittest slalom coach of them all? Well we had the pleasure of witnessing the gruelling  2009 coaches run from the course at La Seu d'Urgell up to the church on the hill. Impressively all coaches made the climb with the motivation of beer and trophies pushing them all the way. Australia had a strong representation including Mike, Myrium, Yann and Patrick (Team AUS physio) and were all very competitive. Thankfully none of them won the awards for worst outfit, most amount of flesh showing or the 'we thought you were going to win...but you didn't' award.

Weekend Getaway

In preparation for the World Championships this week, Team Guinea along with the majority of the Australian Team decided to have a weekend away from Seu to relax and recuperate. Leanne and Kate headed off to Roses in Costa Brava on the North East coast of Spain, the Guinea brothers, Ian and Sam headed a little further south to Barcelona. Both adventures were filled with soaking up the last little bit of sun, shopping and sea food before we head home in a week. 

C1W article

Check out the article regarding the ICF C1W training camp on the Australian Canoeing website.

Worlds Training - Week 1

The C1W camp is over and nation training slots have started in Seu. The camp was definitely a success and hopefully all of the girls plus more will be in Tacen for the first official C1W World Championships next year. 

The Aussie team went into town last night for the final night of the La Seu d'Urgell Festa which involved the fire festival. Luckily we were warned about the need to have minimal skin showing and got decked out in old clothes and scarfs. Some of the locals even went to the length of wearing gas masks and wetting their clothes to avoid the heat and flames. The fire festival started with a performance in the main square then continued with fire breathing devils dancing through the streets of Seu with fireworks with all the townspeople following and ended with everyone dancing in the main square. It was an amazing night!