Opening ceremony and day one of competition at the World Rafting Championships by Will Richardson | Jun 30, 2007 | Heros, Whitewater | 0 comments By Jez The opening ceremony was nothing short of spectacular. We arrived with a police escort and entered the stadium to a hero’s welcome with a huge party like atmosphere complete with traditional Korean dancers, VIP’s, flags, and an amazing karate demonstration by a group who did back flip kicks, wood chops and huge jumps. It’s hard to describe but a very very cool thing to watch. The night finished off with a huge fireworks display, they went all out for this ceremony and was broadcast live thanks to ESPN. It was seriously more like an Olympic Games opening ceremony than a world championships. A night no one will forget. Day one of comp: The river dropped a little and things got a little bony around part of the sprint. Not ideal but the comp got started with the sprint and head to head race. An unfortunate starting line on the Head to Head race meant everyone who started on the river left lane all proceeded through to the next round which was a little disappointing. However these things happen. A few teams from different countries were unimpressed. Russia , the odds on favorites had a bad line at the end of the leg as they got caught up in the rocks. This meant they had a poor gate choice in the head to head where USA beat them. Today saw it’s share of controversy, however made for an interesting day that’s for sure. Current standings are as follows: Brazil BRK 1 Japan JPN 2 Slovakia SVK 3 Italy ITA 4 Germany GER 5 U S A USA 6 Bosnia-Herzegovina BIH 7 Great Britain GBR 8 Russia RUS 9 Mexico MEX 10 Indonesia INA 11 Australia AUS 12 Hungary HUN 13 Netherlands NED 14 Czech Republic CZE 15 Slovenia SLO 16 Canada CAN 17 South Africa RSA 18 Ecuador ECU 19 Croatia CRO 20 Kazakhstan KAZ 21 Argentina ARG 22 Korea KOR 23 Austria AUT 24 India IND 25 Philippines PHI 26 Serbia SER 27 Denmark DEN 28 Tomorrow slalom. You can check out a few of our pictures at: http://picasaweb.google.com/ausraftteam/Korea2007 Submit a Comment Cancel replyYour email address will not be published.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