World Cup #1 -Prelims Results for Men's Kayak and Junior Men's Kayak

August 15, 2008

Last night it started raining in the middle of the night, again, and all day today was cold and grey. Everyone was wrapped up in layers, raincoats, some had umbrellas, but everyone was on deck to start the first event of the 2008 World Cup at 8am today. The Junior Women went first today but their results were at another location that I couldn’t find at the time of this writing, sorry! I’ll get them out tomorrow.

The Junior men went second and it started off with a bang with some great rides by Jason Craig in the first heat. The juniors were throwing a flurry of moves of all types. Some had the hard moves like the Phonics Monkey, the McNasty, Tricky Woos, etc., while others threw loops, Space Godzillas, split wheels, cartwheels, clean cartwheels, etc. The skill levels varied and the performance in the competition varied as well. Dane Jackson had a bad day in his rides and didn’t make the cut and the bubble boy was Jonathan Shales, who had been doing awesome all week in practice. Maxime Renault, age 17, from France, tore the hole up and scored big points to take first place. He is a great combination of a very confident, intelligent, cool kid, who also is super friendly and down to earth. Well done by his parents and him for that. Sebastian Devred, also from France took second in the prelims and was also paddling awesome. Michael Palmer (LP) and Jason Craig were the two USA paddlers to take it to the next level by getting in the top 10 with a 3rd and 4th.

In the Senior Mens’ Class, with 15 heats, I wasn’t able to watch each one as I had to eat from time to time! I did see Clay Wright and Nick Troutman go early on in heat 3. They both did awesome! Clay through a flurry of moves in his second ride, consisting of linking split wheels into Space Godzillas, and other cool stuff. Nick focused on the bigger scoring moves and nailed most of them to put the crowd on its feet. I went in heat 6 with Mathieu Dumoulin, the current European Champion, and Eddie Smith from England who also is awesome. It was a great heat to be in as the rides were impressive to watch right before and after my own. I missed my opening move on my first ride, but went to a fast plan B and nailed a quick cartwheel flurry, with two linked splits, a clean, and cartwheel right into a Phonics Monkey Right (my opening move after my entry move). They made the Macho Move Entry illegal as there is a board that makes the hole that they don’t want us pogoing off of. I don’t know if I hit many of my bonuses (huge air bonus), but the best I can gather from the score I got two on each ride.

The results didn’t come out until the end of the day so nobody knew how they were doing. I just found out at dinner that I had won the first round and even though I tried to keep a straight face about it when eating with Jessie and Ruth, I had a permanent smile on my face during dinner. I felt very fortunate to have two good rides (880 and 860) in a row when they both count. At the end of the day, the results for prelims only matter if you miss the cut. We all are back to zero. Tomorrow is the BIG day! Tomorrow all classes cut down to the final 5 for Sunday’s finals! In the men’s K1 class, we’ll do a Quarter-Finals at 11:30am and then a night-time Semi-finals at 10pm under the lights! The last time we had a major international round this late at night was in Sort, Spain at the 2001 World Championships for the Semi-Finals that started at 11:30pm! If it is anything like that night, people were wired, frazzled, and fired up but not paddling at their best as the nerves, the lights, and the hype of a stadium of rowdy fans were cheering and creating havoc! I hope it is like that again since I remember it well and think I can handle it.

It is time for me to wrap this up and get to bed soon!

See you tomorrow on the water!

🙂