World Cup 1- Racing

This weekend has been full on and I am feeling pretty tired. Friday morning kicked off bright and early with buckets of rain! I had C1W at around 9am and for me I was aiming to put down a run that was online and in the middle of the gates. It was, but I picked up 4 touches and my pace was more cruisy than competitive. However it was enough to see me through to the Semi-Finals on Saturday in 15th position. Next up was K1 and having already done a run on the course I was feeling confident about all the moves. I started out of the start line fast and focused but cut the first technical move tight and lost a second or two. I then continued down the course at an intensity just under my ideal. I had to back off for two more moves and this cost me more time. I ended up being clean with a time of 105sec. I was a bit disappointed but revving to get into my 2nd run as I knew I could fix a few things for sure! I busted into my 2nd run feeling good and held my composure most of the way down the course. I lost a second or two here and there but it was a pretty solid run for me. My time ended up being 100sec clean, 12 seconds off the 1st place which went to the speed demon Austrian- Korinna Kuhnle. I ended up in 49th place. This result is worse than any I have ever gotten and yet I paddled better than I ever have at a World Cup! So it is great to see the level in the Womens Class has really picked up, it is also due to the fact that there is a new system for all countries competing in the World Cups, your country can qualify up to 5 boats and every country is guaranteed one spot. This system means that for the really good countries such as Germany, Slovakia and France they can have up to 5 of there really good paddlers racing! It definitely ups the level.
Luuka put down 2 solid runs her first a 95+2 and 2nd was a 96clean. She just missed the cut ending up in 33rd, 0.2sec off the top 30. The Top 30 go through to the Semi-final for the Women this year and top 40 in K1M, Top 20 for C2M, Top 20 for C1W and Top 30 for C1M.
SEMI-FINAL C1W: The Semi-final course was really technical with a lot of tricky moves. I was feeling pretty nervous for the course actually. I made my plan and went into it with all intentions of going hard, this didn’t quite happen though. After missing gate 5 it was pretty much Game Over, I also lost a lot of speed in the top section and this meant I lost a bit of control. I picked up 3 50second penalties and was slow. I ended up in 16th position. While the C1W field was small this weekend the field was reasonably strong and included some creditable performances. The top 10 were all performing well considering this is a new event.
All in all there was a lot to take out of the weekend event. It was loaded with ups and downs and I learnt a lot from the racing. For now we are enjoying our last night here in Prague with my Mother and Pauline. Tommorrow we will fly to Barcelona and then head to La Seu in Spain and be getting ready for World Cup number 2!