European Champs - finals
Today I became European Champion! Pete and Dave both congratulated me in the eddy with words along the lines of ´about time Jarvie´. This was my 1st international Gold medal (they have mostly been Bronze till now!) and 1st European Champs medal since Thun 2002, so it has been a long time coming.
The knockout finals for the ladies produced the usual up and down performances and I believe from everyone´s previous scores and watching the finalists practice it could have been any one of us at the top or the bottom at any one time - I managed to time my one ride at the top at the right time! I hadn´t been first at any point during the heats or the rounds, but bizarrely (for me in a knockout final) my scores got higher on each round. We all started off with flaky first rides and unfortunately for Lowri, despite a perfect loop in her practice ride, she ended up in 5th after an early flush. Kim from Ireland took 4th place in her first international final and Nina (Haslova)didn´t manage to pull off her loop in her 3rd ride but had some really solid rides to go home with the Bronze.
So, up for the final ride was me to go first and Querine Wegman (Holland) to go after. I got pretty much all of the moves I was able to score on this wave and although I flushed on my loop was pretty hopeful as only Nina had scored loops previously. Querine took an early flush on her ride and I won with the 2nd highest scoring ride of the ladies final! I´m not sure if I was necessarily the best performer as I wasn´t always getting the best moves (although I did land some good loops in practice!), however there have been far too many times when I have been so much better than my finals position suggested but this time it all went my way at the right time meaning, for once, I was able to take full advantage of a knockout final! (I still don´t like them though and am looking forward to future competitions having the '3 rides, best ride counts' format)
The Brits went home with a number of medals starting with the squirt competition where we were guaranteed a medal due to 5 out of 6 paddlers being British! Claire O´Hara put in fantastic performances in the unisex competition and knocked out fellow Brit Mike Scutt and former European Champion - Oriol (Spain). Emma took 4th and Claire got a podium place in 3rd. James Reeves knew his run plan well and was solid on every ride taking the top spot each time and finally the title of European Champion. Pete Cornes, who was initially a reserve, took home a silver medal in his first international competition.
James Reeves - Squirt Boat European Champion
Paul King took 5th place in the OC1 in his first international competition.
In junior ladies Islay Crosbie from GB put in a stirling performance on her first ride putting her in first place but caught an edge early on in her 2nd ride giving her 4th place. Poppy Layton had been producing good rides all week and took the silver medal.
In the first few rides of the Junior men´s competition everyone had been going as big as they had done throughout the competition and practice rides. (check out this loop from one of the junior Frenchies - huge!) Tom Turner had a great ride with a loop and Space Godzilla but it wasn´t quite enough to put him through to the next round, but he was rightfully pleased with his performance and took 5th place in his first major competition. Joe Bradley had been getting huge blunts, back blunts and clean blunts as well as loops, all of which earned him a well-deserved Bronze medal.
Dave Bainbridge was going off in the C1, unfortunately I was peeing into a pot during the first couple of rounds so couldn´t watch, but apparently he got a huge back air panam on his first ride and continued to go big throughout all of his rides giving him the European Championship title.
There were no Brits in the men´s final. Mathieu (France) had been in the top spot from the start, he was the only men´s finalist to go for entry moves (and stuck every one of them), he did a very consistent run plan which included entry move, super clean spin, clean spin, blunts, back blunts, felixes both ways, loops and possibly a couple of other things thrown in. The men obviously felt the pressure on the last ride though as both paddlers fighting it out for the Gold flushed early (good old knockouts:)) and I think the final score was probably close but Mathieu took the title (and I will have to update this when I can remember the name of the silver medalist! - sorry). Peter Csonka took the Bronze.
The full results will probably be published soon. The French got a lot of medals, so did the Brits :) Thanks to the management (Dave, Pete and Terry for their continual help through training and competition)
In junior ladies Islay Crosbie from GB put in a stirling performance on her first ride putting her in first place but caught an edge early on in her 2nd ride giving her 4th place. Poppy Layton had been producing good rides all week and took the silver medal.
In the first few rides of the Junior men´s competition everyone had been going as big as they had done throughout the competition and practice rides. (check out this loop from one of the junior Frenchies - huge!) Tom Turner had a great ride with a loop and Space Godzilla but it wasn´t quite enough to put him through to the next round, but he was rightfully pleased with his performance and took 5th place in his first major competition. Joe Bradley had been getting huge blunts, back blunts and clean blunts as well as loops, all of which earned him a well-deserved Bronze medal.
Dave Bainbridge was going off in the C1, unfortunately I was peeing into a pot during the first couple of rounds so couldn´t watch, but apparently he got a huge back air panam on his first ride and continued to go big throughout all of his rides giving him the European Championship title.
There were no Brits in the men´s final. Mathieu (France) had been in the top spot from the start, he was the only men´s finalist to go for entry moves (and stuck every one of them), he did a very consistent run plan which included entry move, super clean spin, clean spin, blunts, back blunts, felixes both ways, loops and possibly a couple of other things thrown in. The men obviously felt the pressure on the last ride though as both paddlers fighting it out for the Gold flushed early (good old knockouts:)) and I think the final score was probably close but Mathieu took the title (and I will have to update this when I can remember the name of the silver medalist! - sorry). Peter Csonka took the Bronze.
The full results will probably be published soon. The French got a lot of medals, so did the Brits :) Thanks to the management (Dave, Pete and Terry for their continual help through training and competition)
posted by flea at 4:42 PM 
1 Comments:
Ah-ha! Well done Jarvie. We all knew that EVENTUALLY you would stop flattering the competition by always coming 3rd and win something! Only the World's to go now and then you can retire and start talking about extensions, painting, weddings etc.
Oh, sorry, you already do.
Kayaking is clearly not for these young flash in the pans. You need a bit of staying power...
Laters,
Ed
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