WWGP Stage 3: Time Trial: Results

The Whitewater Grand Prix has always been known for it’s extreme stature, and this years Time Trial was no different.The Shawinigan River is steep and manky and  made for a great Grand Prix race course. The race was 3 runs and your best 2 count.

The line was pretty obvious run down the mank on the left, boof the waterfall, sprint through the eddy and run the next rapid in an assortment of ways just finish pointing downstream and sprint through the finish. This might sound easy though there were lots of ways to screw it up: which I did several of. The biggest mistake I did was boof the waterfall and not land far enough left which then means getting pushed deep into the left eddy and costing valuable seconds when the race course is only 52+ seconds long. The next mistake I seemed to do on all of my race runs was to somehow run the bottom drop and either surf, spin or get pushed deep into the left eddy there as well.

At the end of the day It was a truly impressive race to watch and when the paddlers nailed the lineit looked good and crazy fast. There was also a little bit of carnage to add to the equation with some people flipping in the manky, surfing above the falls, running the falls backwards and one unfortunate swim over the falls that looked exceptionally gnarly, though luckily no one was injured. Dane Jackson and Chris Gragtmans just screamed through the course and took home the top two places, followed by an equally fast and consistent Tino Specht. I had my personal worst finish so far with a 17th place, though know we are off to the next competition and I get to try again.

Here are a full list of results.

Mens:

1st Place: Dane Jackson (USA)
2nd Place: Chris Gragtmans (CAN)
3rd Place: Tino Specht (USA)
4th Place: Gerd Serrasolses (ESP)
5th Place: Tyler Curtis (CAN)
6th Place: Aniol Serrasolses (ESP)
7th Place: Mathieu Dumoulin (FRA)
8th Place: Galen Volckhausen (USA)
9th Place: Rush Sturges (USA)
10th Place: Marcos Gallegos (CHL)
11th Place: Joel Kowalski (CAN)
12th Place: Bryan Kirk (USA)
13th Place: Jules Domine (FRA)
14th Place: Bren Orton (GBR)
15th Place: Evan Garcia (USA)
16th Place: Kalob Grady (CAN)
17th Place: Nick Troutman (CAN)
18th Place: Tyler Fox (CAN)
19th Place: Sam Ward (GBR)
20th Place: Devyn Scott (CAN)
21st Place: Juanito de Ugarte (PER)
22nd Place: Leif Anderson (USA)
23rd Place: Casper van Kalmthout (NLD)
24th Place: Louis-Philippe Rivest (CAN)
25th Place: Ian Vogel (CAN)

Womens:

1st Place: Martina Wegman (NLD)
2nd Place(tie): Adriene Levknecht (USA) // Mariann Saether (NOR)
4th Place: Sandra Hyslop (GBR)
5th Place: Nicole Mansfield (USA)
6th Place: Lu Urwin (NZL)
7th Place: Hannah Kertesz (USA)