Paddling Round the World

October 7, 2008

By Jez

It all started off with a trip to the South East of the USA to instruct a bit at camps.

Then off to Europe I went. Into Prague and what a beautiful city it is. The location was great in the city and the feature was a hole with a stadium style grand stands all around. It felt like you were paddling in a grand final with the crowd basically right next to you. Unfortunately the water quality was a little off with rain storms flushing everything down and this was the start of a month of sickness for many of us. It also rained for what seemed like forever, and this also took its toll.

Augsburg, Germany was next at the washing machine hole. This hole allowed for huge loops and super fast hole tricks. Once again the crowd could really get up super close to the action. If you were to sit on the side of the banks you could reach out and touch the paddlers in the hole, now you can’t get closer to the excitement than that.

I was fortunate to be able to ride around the city on a bike by myself and had an afternoon where everything just clicked. I just understood the way these people lived, getting around on bikes and living in a town with so much history and culture. That afternoon was by far a turning point in my trip as I did not enjoy the prior week, mostly I guess because of the sickness and rain.

The whitewater center was a green manicured lawn which made for a uniquely picturesque location to have a competition. Clay mentioned about this whitewater course, "I feel like a golfer kayaking here except I only play one hole."

Once again the competition was fierce however the loops were ridiculously big.

On to Thun and you could not ask for a better location, the wave was right in the heart of the small historic city with castles in the background. The festival had it all, from slackliners across the river to the king of the wave carnage event. It was all there.

I was very fortunate to be able to announce every event which allowed me the opportunity to watch almost every paddlers ride throughout the whole world competition and what amazing paddlers are out there. The Europeans are very dynamic boaters and the new scoring system promoted paddlers to cartwheel and keep moving in between moves. There was a bit of contention with the scoring system but this is always going to be difficult to find a medium that paddlers from all over the world agree with.

As for my results I was very happy to be able to win at Prague and Thun, and getting a second place at Augsburg gave me the overall win in OC1 which I was stoked about.

Although it took me next to six weeks to completely get over the Prague water sickness, this trip was spectacular. A month on the road with the team was without a doubt awesome. Paddling every day in Europe with the best paddlers in the world was an experience I will never forget.

I will be trying to make a film on the road trip which will be released next year called World Cup Road Trip so stay tuned for that.

jez
Jackson Kayak Coordinator of Karma