World Championships Day 2 Blog

January 27, 2005

Today I was a spectator for the show we call the 2005
World Freestyle Kayak Championships. The women, junior women, C1, and
OC1 classes competed in prelims today. After yesterday about 50 men’s
kayak paddlers were eliminated, so the first of the big party nights happened
already, meaning that many paddlers dragged in a little rough today. Luckily
they don’t start the competition each day until 1:30pm, giving everybody
a little time to recover in the morning.

The women started things off and Tanya Shuman hit the
water in the first heat, and killed it on her first run leading the women
all of the way to the end!

The biggest story of the day was actually a very sad
one. Tanya Faux, who lives and trains here, and has been scaring the begeebees
out of the other women in practice, consistently getting loops, blunts,
lots of ends, clean blunts, and more, had two very, very poor rides (for
her) and missed the first cut. She had the most pressure, the biggest
cheering section (all of the Aussies), and the biggest chance of winning
based on practice, and somewhere in her head it didn’t equate to good
competition rides on that day. To make matters worse, they announced her
score wrong at first and had to correct, giving her some false hope, even
though she knew the moment her second ride was over that she was in trouble.
The whole competition will have a different feel since now the women will
be competing with out the big local hitter. I am very sorry to see Tanya
out of this competition.

The rest of the day:
The flags were flying, and the banks of the stadium were filled with spectators,
mostly kayakers, watching and cheering on their teams. The junior women
were really fun to watch this time also, with Both Emily Jackson and Jak
Alder scoring top 5 in the women’s class and taking first and second in
junior women.

Personally, I went home to rest after 8 hours at the
course in the sun after Emily went and didn’t get to see the C1 or the
OC1 classes go. Here are some photos of the day. As the week progresses
it is great to see the new friends being made, accross the borders, regardless
of what the country politics are. For sure I can say one thing, the USA
is the least liked country here, as a country with its intrusive politics.
It usually takes a few meetings before people can get past the distaste
for an American before they can accept you as a person, but among kayakers,
it always happens and now we are a community of kayakers, where there
are no borders.

🙂 EJ

For more coverage see www.bliss-stick.com,
www.playak.com,
www.doubleuess.com
as well as Canadian coverage by www.ottawakayak.com