The Midwest Freestyle Championships

This past weekend I got to head to one of my top three paddling events each season. The Midwest Freestyle Championships is everything that is amazing about whitewater kayaking and the people that make up the sport. The event starts out with two days of clinics. This year we had so much demand that we needed to bring a 4th instructor to help meet the demand. As a group our 4 instructors got to work with 45 students. That is a super good ration considering that there were 100 competitors over the weekend’s events. Team JK was in full effect with John McConville and Jessica Yurtinus as part of the coaching team in addition to both repeating their titles as the Midwest Freestyle Champions! World Kayak ambassador Brian Tupper rounded out our instructional team.
The beginner category had 50 boaters in it this year! With that much new blood coming down the line, good things are bound to happen. In addition to traditional freestyle events Wausau hosts a boatercross race and a team freestyle event. The team event is the most fun you can have in Wausau. Imagine a 2 min ride where your team can do anything to rack up points. You can have multiple folks in the hole at once if you think you can pull it off. My team got edged out by John’s team that took the win. Good work guys!

Community is what makes Wausau great. The weekend would not be the same with out drinks and 4 square at the VFW with the Team PBR boys. The groups from Dive point and Whitecap kayak help round out the full spectrum of boaters. Without Brian’s hard organizational work none of it would be possible and Chad spend more time judging than any human should endure. Thanks to the community of Wausau. I hope you guys are stoked to have me come back again next year!

Later ; Colin
Team JK