Let the games begin! The Jackson’s are leaving today for the World Championships in Australia by Will Richardson | Dec 27, 2004 | Whitewater | 0 comments December 27, 2004 Full coverage of the 2005 World Freestyle Championships will be happening right here at old.jacksonkayak.com! Look for photos and video of the site if you are competing and are still training at home so you know what to expect. If you are just watching with interest here is what you can expect. The lead in to the event is three weeks long. Emily, Dane, and I will be there training along with the rest of the world and will keep you up to date on what is going on, who is paddling well, complete with photos and an occasional video. The coverage will be primarily from my point of view, of course, since I will be writing most of it and will also be competing, however, I will provide an objective point of view on coverage with a personal account of how it is going for me as I attempt to win my third World Championships. Last year at the Pre-World Championships, now titled the International Freestyle Championships, I won by less than one point over Billy Harris from Canada. Billy has been training in Australia now for the past month already and is making a strong run for the title. He placed 5th in the last worlds in Austria and is certainly capable of taking the title. Jay Kincaid, the machine, “All Day Jay Kincaid”, my good friend and training buddy for a couple of years, (we didn’t get to train together this year, bummer) will be coming with the goal of destroying the competition (bring it on Jay!) and he is certainly capable, beating out the world in 2003 to win his first world championships. Watch for Yagi from Japan, strong, fast and awesome, Tobi was Europe’s number one seed over the past few years, we’ll see what he has to bring to the table in 2005. There are countless others that I haven’t mentioned, like the entire US Team, Dustin Urban, Javid Grubbs, Jimmy Blakeney, and Brian Kirk are all so good that any of them could bring home the gold on a good day. Local boy, Anthony Yapp (“Yappa”) put the world to shame with his enormous loops last year. He paddled really well on the Ottawa this year and is so fast and explosive that he may be the guy to beat this year. To give you some insight into how the world championships goes, check out my coverage of the 2003 World Championships. It was a heartbreaker for me, winning every round until the finals, having one bad ride at the wrong time, and having to watch the medals round from the shore. However, it was an awesome event in a big munchy hole in downtown Graz. That coverage will be available to read from my archives for anybody interested. I will be especially interested in the junior women’s and junior men’s classes this year. Emily is 14 and will be competing against the best of the juniors, up to age 18. Watch for Hannah Farrar from the USA. She is an unbelievably good boater and has a great shot at the title. Emily has been paddling very well and while taking the silver medal last year at the Pre-World’s, she has a strong shot at the gold this year. Dane is competing at age 11 and ½ the size of most of the other boys. 63 pounds of solid muscle to throw around the Fun 1 (19 pound kayak) is enough to make his boat do the same moves as the big guys. He has a huge challenge with the junior boys paddling a lot like the senior men, but did very well last year. He got 4th in the prelims, having a killer ride, and then finished 7th overall. Never count this kid out, as he made the USA Junior team beating out some incredible paddlers. The rest of the USA team is looking like a winning combination with Justin Patt from California leading the charge and a great boater with perfect skills for the World’s site. Todd Baker, a self proclaimed wave boater, has the skills for this wave/hole too, we’ll have to wait and see if he can proclaim himself a hole boater too. In the women’s class the local girl Tanya Faux, who won there last year, is so good it is scary! She has the local advantage, as well as lots of time abroad (traveling across the USA for the tour in 2004) so she knows what the North American girls are capable of. She can do the big moves like the Phonix Monkey too! After that, the entire USA Team is going to be strong, with Tanya Shuman being the veteran, but Kristin Polock and Amy Jimmerson are super strong and will make their debut this year. The rest of the world has incredible women, like Nikki Kelley from New Zealand. Look for the Chezch, Slovak, Japanese, British, and German teams to have medal ready women this year. For you squirters out there, watch for Deb O’Keefe and Devon Barker going for the women’s title from the USA, world title, along with Dustin Urban, who dominated last year’s men’s Pre-Worlds, going for his first gold medal. The Japanese, and British are the big squirting countries, along with the USA. I hope everybody is having a great holiday season so far! 🙂 EJ Submit a Comment Cancel replyYour email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *Comment * Name * Email * Website Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Δ