World Championships 2009!!!

After a sweet opening ceremony in which we were entertained by the talented La Seu locals we cruised to the course for demos. The course is pretty good, with nothing we haven’t really tried in training. Qualification for the K1W and C2 was today. I was feeling pretty nervous before my 1st run, this showed as I touched the 1st gate and had a few mishaps on my way down. I finished with a pretty slow run of 120seconds! But I felt a lot more relaxed before my 2nd and managed to pick up my pace putting down a clean 111seconds. Unfortunately Luuka picked up a 50second penalty on both of her runs, she was having really good runs before the 50’s too!!The fasted girl was a Spanish chick who put down a time of 96seconds!!Awesome to watch. I finished up in 42nd, my 1st World Championships. Today it is the C1M, K1M and C1W!! So all Kiwi's are racing today, as me and Luuka will be racing in the Womens C1!:).Looking forward to watching some tight racing in the Mens C1 and Mens K1!Gooooo NEW ZEALAND!For live results check out: www.canoeicf.com or www.123result.com There is Video online as well, but im not totally sure on the website, will update it later.

La Seu

Living back in the Catalonian area of Spain is great. I really love the chilled out atmosphere and way of living. This week there has been a Spanish Fiesta going on. There are markets all through the streets, typical Catalan dancing and performances. There has also been lots going on at night in the town. The other night there was a fire/water festivity. Basically the local Catalan people chasing everyone down the streets with massive sparklers and fireworks!!!It was awesome!!!Really fun!!!
It was so good staying with Montse and her family this last week too. They fed Mike and I well with typical Catalan dishes and our stay there was very relaxing. Now we have moved into some apartments with the whole New Zealand team. It is a great atmosphere in the valley of some nice hills by the river.
Nation training has begun here on the course and so has the one week countdown to the 2009 White Water Canoe Slalom World Championships here in La Seu, Spain!
Adioss
Will put pics up soon as...

Bourg-Seu

Our time in Bourg St. Mourice France was amazing but had to come to an end...thanks so much again to Cieran and his Mum for their hospitality, was really cool. After another long drive we finally arrived back in Spain. Here is La Seu we are staying with Andorra Olympian Montse. Her home is really typical Catalan and Mike and I have been treated to all the typical Spanish meals and style of eating. This time of the year is Fiesta(Party) time in Espanol so the town of La Seu is in party mode. Today at lunch time there will be a lot going on in the town and Saturday night is going to be BIG! Training is going really well. I am taking part in the C1W training camp that is on here this week, it makes for a bit of fun thats for sure!!! I am still trying to keep focus for my K1 for the World Championships though.

Slovenia- France!!!

The race on the weekend was once again not the greatest...I finished 33rd thanks to my touches and loosing some time. Luuka was the only one to make the Semis and finished in 20th.
We then ventured across Slovenia and half way through Italy, until the Van came to stop at a gas station, 120km from Milan. Unfortunately it had come to the end of its time on the roads. It wouldn't start again. So we had no choice but to hitch to Milan to get a rental car. It was pretty sad leaving the van but was time to move on. So we convoyed our way to Bourg St. Mourice in France with our mates Cieran and Nouria. Bourg is a town in the French Alps that is in the valley of some of the best skifields in the world! Soooo beautiful! The river here is massive and really fun to paddle. This is definately one of my favourite places in Europe. You can almost ski all yr round too because it is so high up here. AWESOME!!! We are staying here with Cieran at his parents place, it is a beautiful wooden villa!!!They are looking after us Kiwis super well:)
Tommorrow we will go for another paddle here in Bourg and then head for Spain to begin our lead up for the Worlds!Less than 3weeks!
Some pics of the van...many memories...it served us well for the 5months it lasted!
See www.luukayer.blogspot.com for our last picture with the Incredible Van:)

Slovakia- Slovenia

On the Sunday we watched Mike race his way from the Semis to qualify in 5th for the final. He ended up in 9th in the final, an awesome result!!!Then we packed the van and roadtripped our way to Ljubljana, the capital city of Slovenia. Slovenia is a beautiful country with a lot of greenery, mountrains and nice nature. The city of Ljubljana is very social and full of art and music. Every night the streets are full of people out for a drink or walking, its great. Training here is equally as good as the whitewater is challenging and great fun. This weekend we have the Pre World Championships here!!!

Slovak Open-Quals Race

Today we had the qualification for the Slovak Open. The boys were off first this morning. Then Luuka, Brent and I were this afternoon. I know the course here in Bratislava really well so I was feeling pretty good, even though the course was pretty tricky. However I had an average 1st run with two touches and I took a roll, my time was 129+4secs. My 2nd run started a lot better with a pretty solid online top section, then I unfortunately made a small mistake which caused me to do another roll and 50 two gates! So my 2nd run time was 124+102. I ended up in 37th, top 20 cuttoff was 124seconds. I was pretty gutted as I was feeling good for this race and was hoping to do a lot better. Luuka had some touches in her runs which was enough to put her out of the top 20, so she ended up in 34th. Brent has only just arrived in Europe so is still aclimatizing, he missed the Semi for C1M. Unfortunately Johann and Aaron missed the Semi too, there were over 100 K1M! Mike dominated the K1M to qualify in 1st!!!Very stoked for him, its awesome and well deserved!
So tommorrow we will be cheering on Mike in the Semis, along with doing some assignments for me!!!and then Monday I think we will cruise to Ljubiana.
Off to a concert by the course tonight:)

Bratislava-Slovak Open

As stoked as we were to be in Seu training at the Worlds venue, the weather took a turn in our last few days and turned a bit rainy, so it was time to leave. The car was finally fixed so we picked it up and drove all the way to Bratislava(Via Augsburg, with a quick visit at our friend Kathrins). Its great to be back here in Bratislava, it is like my 2nd home:).
This weekend we have the Slovak Open competition. The course is looking really tough, I think there will be some interesting racing for sure. Our K1M are off this morning and we are in the afternoon.
Checkout the online results at www.mates.sk

Training in Seu-sweet

Training has continued to go well here in La Seu of Spain. We will be catching a ride with the Spanish on Monday to Bratislava. We have the Slovak Open next weekend in Bratislava that we are looking forward to. Yesterday I was taken up into the Spanish countryside by Olivia a Swiss girl and some Spanish Chicka’s to some natural pools, they were amazing and really beautiful. Everythings sweet.

Training

Life in Espanol

Our luck has taken an amazing turn for the better. Training this week has been epic. We have been doing a bit with the British and the French and the Czechs! Still staying with our friend Andreu, who is an awesome cook.
So all is going really well.
Adioss

Another long day

Wow. Where to start... today has been a real mixture of emotions. After going for a run this morning Luuka and I were dropped at the Main road by the British head Coach, our journey back to the broken down car was to begin here. Only moments later we were approached by a Spanish Man and his dog, the man (Andreus) had a kayaking t-shirt on but did not speak much English...Andreus and his friend then took us all the way to Luuka’s broken down car. Last night Eurg(The British Coach) had very kindly used his French skills to converse with our mechanic and we had arranged to pick up the ‘fixed’ car today. However when we arrived with Andreus today we found no mechanic and a still very broken down car! I was so gutted...soooo gutted! So we decided to take our kayaks and gear back with Andreas to Seu, another 1hour 30min of driving! When we arrived back in La Seu Andreu very kindly offered us to stay in his place in town! We were bought in and sat down and had various dishes of cheese, chocolate, bread, fruit, carrots and custard presented to us!!Wow! We were a bit overwhelmed and in disbelief of how lucky we are right now and just how kind Andreu is. Although the last few weeks have been a bit stressful and not easy we have been amazed at how generous people can be. The British have been really helpful as well with words of encouragement and letting us borrow their boats on the flatwater (Thanks esp. To Lizzie, I used her kayak). So our situation here has not turned out too badly! We are staying with some friendly people in the middle of town, have our kayaks so will be able to join into one of the white water sessions of either Czech, Slovak, British or French. And the next plan of attack is to train here on the course for the next few days and then on Thursday we will fly back to Prague, this is where the other Kiwis will be too.
I am sitting here now and still can’t quite believe how well it all turned out for us. Although it is really unfortunate about the car it has still all worked out pretty well. I think we have come out of the situation with luck on our side! I definitely think that there are some people in the world that are really sooo nice and will go so far out of their way to help other people.

Last days in Spain

We continued our flatwater training this week and then on Friday we managed to borrow some playboats!This meant we could have a play on the whitewater:). It was fun. Today the car is suppossed to be ready so we should be driving back to Augsburg tonight...hopefully!

Nightmare...

Okay so it has now been nearly 3weeks since we came to Spain for the training camp. The training camp was really great. The rest after the training camp was good. And the 5days of training after that were good too. Now however...I just want to get out of here! Don't get me wrong...I love Spain and Seu is awesome. But to paddle on the Whitewater here it costs 200Euro per session, so you need to find a few people to paddle with. Because we thought the car would be ready on Sunday we went to where it had broken down with our kayaks. So on Sunday night after hitching back here we have no kayaks. We have been doing lots of gym and flatwater which has been okay, but ideally it would be good to get back on the whitewater. So today we are going to make some decisions about what to do..if the car isnt fixed by tommorrow we will be out of here. Either with the Spanish who are driving to Augsburg tommorrow, or I will fly somewhere to meet the other Kiwis.
Adioss

Update: Back to Seu

This morning we had what we thought was our last training on the slalom course here in La Seu for a while. Fortunately for us we had (G)Guillermo, the Spanish Olympic K1 coaching us, it was probably my best session all week! So after the session Luuka and I caught a ride with the Dutch back to Luuka's broken down car in Illes Sur Tet. Unfortunately however the car(That was supposed to be fixed by now) is not! The mechanic said it will not be ready until Weds night or Thurs morning!!!We were both absolutely gutted, as we were really looking forward to getting back to Augsburg. So we were stuck once again in Illes Sur Tet(Middle of nowhere in France). It was time to start hitching once again. We were really lucky and managed to get picked up pretty much straight away. After three rides and 2hours of driving we made it back to La Seu. We decided we were best to come back here to La Seu for training as it has all the facilities for training and is the site of the Worlds so not a bad place to be! We are here until Weds evening(Or Thurs Morning, depending on car). Then we will finally cruise to Augsburg.

Last days in Spain

This week has been pretty chilled out. We have been making the most of our time on the whitewater here in La Seu. Tommorrow we are cruising to Illes Sur Tet to collect the car and then head back to Augsburg in Germany. It will be great to get back and chill at the Eiscanal, along with some solid training too of course!

Back to training

Yesterday we went on a mission to Illes Sur Tet(where Luuka's car broke down). We somehow managed to translate with the French Mechanic, and the car is going to get fixed. The last four days of rest and Andorra times were sweet!!!But today we are stoaked to be back in Seu and training again. We have decided to come back here to La Seu and will do another 5day training camp, it will be good to get more time on the course. We will cruise back to Augsberg on Monday after our morning session. Better go, adioss

Andorra

Today we hopefully find out from the mechanic what the story is with Luuka’s car. For now, we have taken to rest in the tax free capitol of the world...Andorra!!!Everything here is very cheap and there are shops for Africa! So for Luuka and I this is a great way to rest and recover. We are hoping to get back into training on Friday. Today we are on a shopping mission, tomorrow we are hiking into the depths of the Pyreenees mountains. Then we were going to hire a scooter and make our way across Andorra and Spain and through the French Pyrenees back to the (hopefully by then fixed) car!But couldnt get scooters so have settled for a car to take us there. We are stoked to be feeling fresh again and back in high spirits. I think that our situation with the car has forced us to take a few days off without our kayaks which is needed, it is not easy leaving your kayak behind and I probably wouldn’t have been able to take days off otherwise. It has only been 2days and already I feel like I want to go paddling again!!!Just slightly addicted!

Jana's photos

My friend Jana takes awesome photos and I found some of my travels, click to enlarge...

Some pics

Spain

It is another beautiful day here in La Seu and we are chilling out at the course watching the Spanish Champs!Unfortunately we were unable to enter. We went wandering through town today and saw some wicked markets and delicous looking bakerys. We had Paela for lunch(typical Spanish meal, was great). We are leaving La Seu tommorrow to go and explore for 5days. We are heading towards beaches, mountains and maybe cities...will jump on a bus and see where we end up!:)

Training in La Sea

This week training here in La Seu has been awesome!!!I feel like I know the course here so much better now and I am really glad I came. We have been training with the Italians and the Portugese and our sessions have been pretty much empty. Its been super sweet!Yesterday Luuka did some busking!Awesome. Today we find out about the car and whether it can be fixed soon or not.
Adioss

Pictures

World Cup 3- Spain

World Cup number 3 for 2009 in Augsberg, Germany came and went pretty quickly. We spent the week in Augsberg chilling with Kathrin at her place and it rained most days. On the Friday we had qualification for the World Cup race. I was feeling good for the race and quite liked the course. Jindruch Benus from Czech kindly walked the course with me before my 1st run. Unfortunately I missed 1 gate at the top of the course which pretty much meant game over for my 1st run. My 2nd run started a lot better but I once again missed a gate just coming down the Zoomfloom, I went back for it but lost so much time in the process. So for me this race was very unsuccessful. I was feeling pretty gutted but have managed to get over it and I will try and learn from my mistakes. My parents were there which was awesome to have their support. On the Saturday I took part in the Boater X that they held, it was really fun and lightened my spirit a lot! I made it through to the final and finished in 4th which was cool, even though I didn’t perform in the final.
In reflection of the World Cups I feel that although I didn’t perform as well as I could have my paddling reflected a huge improvement from last year. I now have a lot to work on for the World Champs in September so am looking forward to getting in lots of practice.
Last night Luuka and I left Augsberg in Luuka and Aaron and Stephs car and headed for La Seu in Spain(Venue of World Champs). We are here for this week doing some training as there is free water on the course. Unfortunately when we were about 2hrs from La Seu the car broke down!!!It is fully wrecked and will not go. So we went in to a nearby bakery and all the locals helped us get sorted. Being 6pm by the time the car had been checked and diagnosed with its death all the car rental shops were closed and there were no more buses to La Seu. We came to the conclusion we were going to have to ditch the car and take only necessary items(Kayak, paddle, paddling gear, passport, Laptop) and hitch our way to La Seu. We were just about to start hitching when a big Van pulled up with an Andorra number plate. Fortunately these very kind people had room for Luuka and myself and our kayaks!!!!They were soo nice and gave us a ride all the way to La Seu! Along the way we drove over the Pyreenees, through French and Spanish countryside, and I got given a great history lesson. We were feeling so fortunate to have been so lucky to catch a ride here and with such nice people. We are so glad to finally be in Spain and able to train!
Off to set some courses now...

Race= Bad

Will report more later...off to party!

World Cup No.3- GERMANY!

This weekend we have the 3rd World Cup here in Augsberg, Germany. We are staying with our good friend and her family here in Augsberg, Kathrin(Although she is pretty much kiwi!)It is awesome! They have once again been taking good care of Mike, Luuka and myself.
For online results and info about the race check out: www.123result.com/
www.kanu-schwaben-augsburg.de

Boys and C2 are in the morning and K1W and C1M are in the afternoon. It should be a good race. We are heading down to the course for demos and opening ceremony soon.
Al ist gut!

World Cup Bratislava- 32nd Finish

Qualification for World Cup number 2 in Bratislava did not go quite as well as I had hoped. My first run was solid and clean but I lacked strength and power on the blade. My 2nd run was faster with more drive but had 2touches. So I missed the top 20 cut for semis and finished up in 32nd.
Luuka finished in 30th. Mike and Aaron had really nice runs but with the highly contested Mens class finished in 22nd and 28th.
We have now journeyed to Augsberg in Germany and are staying with our favorite German family (The Bickels)!!!It is as always awesome to catch up with Kathrin and hang out in her sweet place. We are going paddling today on the course here in Augsberg and maybe a bikeride! World Cup number 3 will be here in Augsberg this weekend!

Bratislava World Cup 2!

This weekend we have the 2nd World Cup here in Bratislava..
Check out live results and info at.. http://www.canoebratislava.com/2009/en