My Australian Summer Wrap-up
So over the last few months I have been extremely busy getting the Australian
National Team ready for the World Championships. Usually Australia attends with
just one, two or in some very great cases three athletes at the Worlds.
Sometimes we don’t even get one athlete to world competitions which I have
heard rumours that officials from competition have been disappointed with. Over
the last few years as head coach of the Australian Freestyle Team, I have made
a large push to get more athletes at competition which has meant training as
many juniors and paddlers .
We started with just two heading to the worlds this year as usual, however
after pushing some of the locals here that train on the Penrith Whitewater
Stadium we have been very lucky to now have the largest Australian Freestyle
Team in history heading over seas to a Worlds Competition. 9 Athletes from
around Australia will be making the trip to North Carolina in September and all
but two are new to this kind of competition. With this amount of newbs comes a
stack of questions and uncertainty, however also brings an unparalleled level
of eagerness to the team.
I have had to transition to be more of an organiser than just focus on being an
athlete and have given up my spot on the K1 team to now sit as a reserve in the
team allowing someone who has never paddled at the Worlds before to get this
life changing experience. This has given me a great deal of good karma which I
will try to get back when I compete in C1 and OC1. The mighty state of Western
Australia has it’s first freestyle athlete as well as the Australian Capital
Territory, so many new and exciting firsts this year.
Three brand new Juniors will be making the epic trip halfway around the world
to North Carolina, all who will be trying to get their head around travelling
to another country and competing for their first time. I have always taken so
much for granted and have come to realise leading such a team includes making
sure everything is organised. From the uniforms down to where they will be
getting a bight to eat, 9 different people make so more effort than I imagined.
In saying this I am so stoked to be part of such a large team and Australia will
be competitive once again.
This summer in Australia I have been working on a bunch of moves at Penrith
Whitewater Stadium, as well as participating at the usual Monsoon Madness
Festival in Cairns which includes the Boatercross National Championships and
the freestyle nationals where I was fortunate to take out another championship.
Thanks go agin to Josh Bond for making this event possible. We also had a month
long visit by Claire O’Hara who stirred up a bunch of media while she was here.
The cafe at the whitewater course named a burger after me this summer, how cool
is that!
We have also helped out instructing at the Cables Wake park
which has been super cool fun for our down time. This summer I completed my
first every 24 hour bike race and let me tell you that you find out a lot about
yourself at 4am in the morning biking around a technical course, a painful but
very rewarding experience.
So a great summer indeed. I am finishing up things here and
preparing for an epic adventure in the States once again. This summer, not only
will I be heading to the worlds to participate, I will also be announcing,
coaching the Australian team, instructing in the Southeast as well as taking an
expedition to Costa Rica. So much to do, so little time to do it all.
Now here is a cool story about a bit of an adventure that
took place in our Blur Mountains.
Ok, so there it was. A friend was n a first decent and he
was six hours late on a river that was supposed to take only an hour or two.
Time to swing into rescue mode. So what would you do? Grab a rope? Call the
Authorities? Nope, my first point of call was Facebook. Why oh why I hear you
ask…
Well I was an hour from the location, we have a great
boating community down here however it is very small indeed, committed but
small and everyone knows everyone. Facebook allowed us to rally the troops so
to speak and by the time the Authorities had got out there and got organised I
know from personal experience it would have been dark. So with that being said
all it took was a post saying, “First decent is late and we need to work
out a plan.” And with that, all the local boaters headed out to the river
and set up a plan. Within an hour we had all gear, boats, nav equip and feed
ready for a long night in case it came to that. Just as we were setting up a
plan Liam and the crew who were missing paddled around the corner apologising
as they had one of those epic days on the water. Just goes to show that
Facebook can be a great whitewater rescue tool, who would have thought.
Check out Claire and I in our radio interview here:
http://www.spreaker.com/user/brendo/claire_o_hara_world_champ_kayaking?utm_source=widget
and here is a write up from Australian Canoeing
http://www.canoe.org.au/?page=26009&format=
Congratulations to the Australian freestyle team selected to represent
Australia at the 2013 ICF Freestyle Kayaking World Championships held on the
Nantahala River in North Carolina, USA. The team encompassing 9 athletes from
all around Australia is the largest in history showing how far the sport has
come over the last few years. Freestyle is on a potential 8 year path to the
Olympics and the sport is growing exponentially every year. Athletes have 45
seconds to throw as many moves as possible with some moves propelling the
paddler and the boat up and out of the water in a cross between gymnastics and
kayaking.
The selection event for senior athletes was the freestyle National
Championships in Cairns. Junior athletes were selected on this Saturday 20
April at the Junior National Freestyle Championships at the Penrith Whitwater
Stadium.
Junior athletes were lucky enough to benefit from the wisdom of visiting dual
World Champion, Claire O’Hara from the UK, whose titles are held in freestyle
and squirt boating.
The selectors were happy to select the following athletes:
Men’s K1
Joseph Dunn
Liam Corr
Richard Cass
Tim Mann
Jez
Joshua Singleton
Men’s C1
Jez
Men’s OC1
Liam Corr
Jez
Junior Men’s K1
Rowan Kaar
Gilbert Coombes
Brad Elliot-Bool
No nominations were received in the women’s category. Australian Canoeing will
encourage our women freestyle competitors to nominate next season.
In the Juniors class Rowan Carr from the Blue Mountains will be representing
Australia for his first time after winning the National Championships held at
Penrith. He consistently has placed highly at the Junior National Championships
over the last few years.
Nantahala will also be Gilbert Coombes’ first experience at the World
Championships and he has only recently come back from a trip to Cairns paddling
at the Monsoon Madness boatercross championships. The 15 year old youngster
from Hazelbrook says, “I’m so excited to have the opportunity of heading
over to the states and representing Australia.”
Brad Elliot-Bool from Canberra is the first freestyle athlete from Canberra to
represent Australia. Brad mostly paddles on rivers surrounding Canberra,
however he consistently makes the trip to Penrith to train. Brad has mentioned
that he will try to train on the flatwater over the winter periods if no rivers
are flowing.
Tim Mann from Woodford has only recently decided to focus heavily on Freestyle
after paddling for some time as a junior and has made the decision to represent
Australia in the K1 class. The 19 year old will be looking forward to his first
Worlds competition and is excited about the experience.
Joseph Dunne is coming off his top ten result from last year’s Junior World Cup
competition and at 18 is the youngest member on the Australian senior team. Joe
from the Blue Mountains is known for his massive aerial loops which are always
exciting to watch as his whole boat gets up and out of the water as he throws
massive summersaults high in the air.
Richard Cass from Glenbrook is the most experienced paddler on the team. At 50
years of age Richard has only recently focussed heavily on freestyle and his
form at this year’s nationals has proven that age is no limiting factor.
Richard, who grew up in New Zealand, is now training heavily at the Penrith
Whitewater Stadium.
Josh Singleton from Western Australia has never participated at a World
Championship before and is excited at the opportunity to throw down on such a
large stage. Josh has had to train on beach waves over the last year due to the
lack of consistent features and more recently has moved to Sydney to continue
his training.
Liam Corr from Grose Vale had a fantastic result last yearat the ICF World Cup
series finishing in the mid 20′s of the field, the highest ever placing for an
Australian K1 freestyle senior athlete at a World event. Liam is by far
Australia’s best Mens K1 paddler and has won numerous national championships.
He is excited to be competing at this year’s World Championships and will be
looking for a top 20 finish. Ever positive, he said ”I hope to
continue this form at the 2013 Worlds.”
The team will be lead by the Australian Head Coach, and very experienced
Australian team athlete Jez. Jez has been competing on the National team for
the last 10 years and in this time has won three World Cup titles and over 10
national championships. Jez will be competing in 3 disciplines at this year’s
event and has a good chance of standing on the podium again this year. As Chair
of the freestyle committee Jez will be working to ensure the new members of the
team are well prepared for the big event. ‘I’m extremely stoked that the
Australia freestyle team is flourishing. The depth has never been so great and
this is shown in the talent of paddlers we have heading out to the event this
year.’
The 2013 ICF Freestyle Kayaking World Championships will take place on the
mighty Nantahala river in North Carolina from the 2nd – 9th September. The team
will be heading out the week before the event to train. Over 250 athletes from
over 28 countries are expected and this event will be the biggest event ever
held, drawing all the top athletes from across the World.