Night-Time Freestyle Kayak Rave, called Semi-Finals just finished!

August 16, 2008

The rain let up tonight at about 9:20pm. The 4 large overhead spot-lights and the colored concert lights were in full force lighting up what we dubbed the “Freestyle Dance Floor” as the DJ Cranked the music with everyone singing “Hey Ho, Let’s Go, Hey Ho, Let’s Go” to just about everything you would imagine at a rocking club at 2am. The stands were full, literally standing room only, with athletes, coaches, spectators, friends, relatives, and organizers from over 30 countries all kicking off the “losers party” with the Semi-Finals in the Mens K1 class. 10 men enter the “thunderdome” only 5 men leave and get to live another day as a competitor in this event. Jez, the thunder from down under, a Team JK paddler from Australia, was the English speaking DJ and got the crowd going big. There was a Czech DJ that handled the large Czech contingent and had them rowdy and ready for their Czech Semi-finalist Stepan.

“Jasper the friendly host” of the judges, the chief Judge, did a great job not only getting the thing going exactly on time, but also speaking to the crowd to let them know what is up before hand. “Each kayaker gets two rides, best ride counts. The best five rides will be rewarded with a trip to the finals tomorrow. The other five will be rewarded with a night of music, dancing, and parties with no need to get to bed early.”

The lights made a crazy looking arena that once you paddle in, by yourself, coming out of total darkness, you are in the spot light, with the crowd just a deafening noise, and the MC’s just a voice from the darkness, and the music blasting from every direction. The hole was very easy to see, as it was well lit. Just don’t make the mistake of looking all around into the stands as the lights are burning hot and when you look back at the hole you just see a bright spot where you were hoping to find the green water and the foam-pile.

The rides started off with Stepan paddling hard and nailing 50% of his moves, but flushing early. Casper, from the Netherlands was next and must have had his share of the “Big Energy Shock” drinks they were giving out as he went nuts in the hole, getting some awesome moves, but also missing a bunch. He did, however, throw a ton of them that did count. Stephen Wright nailed his second ride and got what looked like 4 major moves, plus an aerial entry move for 100 points and while he still isn’t on fire, he is ramping up nicely. We’ll see how that round leaves him for tomorrow. Eddie Smith was another one that had a flurry followed by a few bobbles, followed by a flurry. Eddie threw down most of the time and had a few moves that were likely with huge bonuses. Tomasz from Poland started with a huge air loop followed by some sweet McNasties and a phonics monkey but bobbled on his Tricky Woo which is usually his best move. He still may be a contender.

In the second heat – top 5 in Quarter-finals- Mathieu started things off with what set the new record for too much energy drink and looked like a punk rocker doing a stage dive. He threw his boat around from one direction to the other so fast and so often that I stopped trying to score it in my head. Racking up a ton of the little moves from spins, to clean spins to super clean spins to cartwheels to clean cartwheels to tricky woos, to front loops space godzillas, to McNasties, etc. whew! His solo dance time was well used and the crowd went nuts. He never once looked like he was worried about flushing, and he never did until the end of his second ride. Awesome.

My first ride was a train wreck, where I got my momentum going with three big moves, just fast enough to kill myself with my 4th move and run off the tracks into the ditch! I was not going to move on with my first ride. I opted for starting in the eddy to get my eyes used to the light and feel the music pounding on me in advance of dropping in. No need to totally shock the whole system at once. My second ride started off like the stars were aligned as the opening Phonics Monkey popped me up into the air giving me that, “oh yea, here we go!” feeling. I popped off my Righty moves first in the more retentive part of the hole and managed a smile or two and even took my time setting up a couple of times, but was a little slower than expected and I still needed a major lefty move and only had three seconds. I dropped my edge and initiated as hard as I could to get the bow around for a lefty Air McNasty and even lifted my chin up for a little extra air as the 45 second horn was blowing and tucked and opened up as hard as I could trying to make my boat slap the water loud enough for the judges to hear it over the crowd and music. Whether they heard it or not, it occurred to me that this was the exact same move I threw at the exact same moment (last possible moment) to secure the win at the 2007 Worlds on Buseater. I don’t know that I won this round, just that I am confident that I’ll move on to tomorrow, but until the results come in, who knows.

Dustin Urban went right after me and I was off downstream in the dark again, after leaving the Thunderdome and taking out below, so I never got to see him but the crowd was deafening and Jez was calling out a flurry of moves. I assume he did really well.

Peter Czonka from Slovakia may well be the top seed after the semi-finals as his first ride was as if he was a machine. He was the “Ice Man” from Top Gun, picking off the moves with more ease than the scribes could make a check mark I the box next to the moves name. Both Tricky Woos, all McNasty and a phonics, as well as some cartwheely moves and a loop. He was not looking nervous as his comments suggested earlier today. Perhaps he was testing my thoughts on how I would feel about the night time event. Either Way, WOW! Peter’s second ride was a disaster as he flushed on most of his moves and there was no way to make it better than his first ride. Best ride counts so no issue.

Nick Troutman make a righty McNasty and Righty Phonics Monkey his personal slave with nothing to do but serve him. His confidence when throwing them is so high he never hesitates and he never misses, and he usually goes huge! We train with the motto, “Don’t try to do the move, just do it.” And he takes that to the next level. He did miss his air-loop on the first ride, and his second ride was not as good, but the first ride had the crowd in a riot and the MC’s were distorting the speakers on top of the music.

Emily took a few photos of the action, and was looking quite cute with her hair in braids. I will be back with results in a few!