Junior Women did their Prelims today!

I had the pleasure of cheering on my daughter, Emily, this morning. She was the second person in the first heat of Junior Women, and she was nervous, sick, sore, confident, and happy all at the same time. I am sure this is something only a girl could pull off, and nobody could pull it off better than Emily. I was nervous for her, and the junior women were paddling really well. Martina from the Netherlands had incredible rides, as did Katie Kowalksi from Canada, and Noria from France. Also making the cut for the finals tomorrow was Flic Mears from Great Britain with three solid rides out of 4. 4 out of the 5 finalist were paddling Jackson Kayaks. Flic had a new 2 Fun and the rest were in Stars. Emily threw a clean backstab, clean spin, Pan Am, and a backstab in her best ride which was a sick one.

I also just watched the Junior mens’ heats 1 and 2 with Dane in heat 2. I left during heat 3 to get some lunch and rest before my quarter-finals this afternoon. I am confident that Dane was in a comfortable lead after the first two heats and we’ll have to see who did well in the third heat…

Yes, Dane won his prelims, putting both Dane and Emily in the lead!

Women’s heats took off and Ruth Gordon destroyed the wave with 60+ points and remained in the lead with Tanta Faux in second with only 3 points less than Ruth! The next best score was 30 points! (Emily would have been 3rd in the women’s class today)
Devon Barker also made the top 10 cut in the women’s class for Team JK!

In the afternoon, the Senior Men’s Kayak class went cutting from 20 to 10 in the quarter-finals. I will start off by saying that Nick Troutman is killing the competition out there and Billy Harris is hot on his trail with them getting 1st and 2nd two days in a row! I moved from 4th place to 8th place today with three mediocre rides at best. Apparently my timing is off again as the water dropped and I didn’t adjust properly. Also my two opening Pam Ams have been judged as air blunts consistently which has killed my score. Time to replace them, apparently they are not judging the most common move as I would, but have put a higher standard on it. That means, dump the Pan Am and replace it with the Clean Blunts.

The big names to get cut today was Anthony Yapp, Rush Sturges, Moe Kelleher, and Jay Kincaid. All incredible boaters, none put down the rides they needed to get into tomorrows semi-finals.

Yes, I have not won a single round, but I am like artificial intelligence and keep learning from my mistakes. I am coming into tomorrow with a whole new plan, based on what I am seeing the judges like.

It is 8:45 and time for me to eat dinner, rest and be ready for semi-finals tomorrow! Emily and Dane are both getting sicker again and need to get through tomorrow and then take a well deserved break!

🙂

EJ