2003 World Freestyle Kayak Championships – Report 32, June 1

Competition Day 6- Finals

1. Jay Kincaid
2. Andrew Holcomb
3. Steve Fisher
4. Eric Jackson
5. Billy Harris

The finals had some of the lowest scores and some good ones as well. In the first round, the only score over 200 was Steve Fisher with Billy Harris getting knocked out with a 90 pointer, Jay with a 113, Andrew with a 143, EJ with a 168, and Steve with a 202. In the next round, I had a solid start with my Space Godzilla entry move into vertical lefties, into a super flush that used up my time coming in at 142. Jay and Andrew both had 186´s and Steve had a great ride at 220. In the next round, everybody paddled well, but Steve got knocked out. It came down to Andrew and Jay. Jay survived each round by the skin of his teeth, but in his last ride he showed the true "All Day Jay Kincaid" style by laying down a ride that would be hard to beat. Andrew missed his opening split wheel which set the tone for the rest of his ride, where he was working hard, getting moves, but just a notch off. Andrew was within striking distance of Jay´s score until he flushed on his blunt. He said after that he was so tired that when he went for it he knew he didn´t have enough left in him to stick it. In that moment, Jay Kincaid became the 6th person in history to hold the title of World Freestyle Champion for men´s kayak. Jay will make a great world champion with his dedication to the sport, his love of paddling in general, and the fact that he has only just begun! If you want to see the world champion in action and learn from his skills, get my DVD´s. They star, Jay, Steve, EJ, and Clay Wright (if Clay competed in these world´s, I am sure he would have been in the top 5 as well)

In the women´s class it was

1. Brooke Winger, USA
2. Deb´s Pinnager, GBR
3. Jutta Kaiser, Germany
4. Fiona Jarvie, GBR
5. Polly Green, USA

Polly trained super hard all winter and came into the competition a new paddler. Her skills were enough to get her on the team this past fall but were not competitive then. When she arrived here, she was ready to compete with the big guns. Unfortunately her first ride was not up to par and she got knocked out first. Fiona paddled exceptionally well in her 3rd world championships to take the 4th place spot. The top three women left were all paddling Wave Sport Transformers (T1´s) I was a proud pappa at this point!

Jutta Kaiser was on fire in the next round, but so was Deb´s and Brooke and they out paddled her handing her the bronze medal.

Deb´s and Brooke duked it out in good old fashioned gloves off, head to head style. They came in two points apart, Brooke in the lead making her the new World Champion for women´s kayak!!

In the Junior Men´s Class

1. Rush Sturges, USA
2. Pat Keller, USA
3. Richard Grimes, GBR
4. Peter Csonka, Chech.
5. Michael Quinif, USA

This was a tale of upsets, blowouts and awesome rides. In a nutshell, Rush put the pressure on and everybody else eventually couldn´t deal. Michael was fully capable of winning, but had a blow out ride on his first to get eliminated. Peter Csonka had a great ReEntry entry move to start his next ride but flushed early and got in the hole and flushed again, see ya. Richard Grimes was dominating early on but got flushed twice to lose to solid rides by Pat and Rush. Rush and Pat gave it their all in the last round. Pat looked loose enough and finally went for his entry move and stuck it, it was game on! Rush answered right back with an entry move and some sick vertical ends, head in the water hucking until your blue style, and made the junior world championship mean something!

C1´s

This is a short story of some C1 heros in full battle. Bill McNight, quite frankly, showed everybody that he was in fact the World Champion by winning every round in the finals. Luke Hopkins and Barry Keenan battled hard over second place but in the end, Luke overpowered Barry with his loop. Barry, (nobody has skills like this guy, kayak or C1 on small features) was the defending world champion and was there to win it again. He didn´t but he already has his sights set on Sydney! Nicolas Sarazin (France) and Goto Morihiro (Japan) took fourth and fifth, but were quite far behind the big guns in scores. For a story on Bill McNight, go to my "stories" section on my website. I wrote about him this spring.

Junior Women

1. Katerina Midgauova (Chech)
2. Ali Wade (USA)
3. Hanna Farrar (USA)
4. Lianne Wagtho (Netherlands)
5. Lena Schnoor (Germany)

The best junior women´s in the history of kayaking happened in this finals. Ali Wade was on fire and nailed a back loop along with some sweet cartwheels. However, Katerina was the girl to beat. She was smiling every moment of the competition and when she got in the hole, she could throw down like a senior. Hanna Farrar had a super solid ride but got over powered by Ali and Katerina to take the bronze. All in all, a great comp.