World Cup #1 Athens

Picture by Mike Dawson
Robin Bell has medalled again and this time it was at the Athens World Cup.Robin overall was the fastest C1 paddler however a touch in the semi final let Robin down.Martikan paddled two clean runs to clench the gold just .94 of a second in front of Robin.Below are the 1st 2nd and 3rd places in each class.Check out www.canoe.org.au for more results.

K1
Daniele Molmenti ITA
Erik Pfannmoller GER
Alex Grimm GER
C1
Michal Martikan SVK
Robin Bell AUS
Jan Benzien GER
K1W
Stepanka Hilgertova CZE
Gabriela Stacherova SVK
Irena Pavolkova CZE
C2
Hochschorner Pavol /Hochschorner Peter SVK
Luquet Pierre / Luquet Christophe FRA
Jiras Marek / Mader Tomas CZE

What A Weekend

Well another weekend has come and gone so quickly.This weekend for me and for many other paddlers was jam packed with paddling.Saturday morning's session was FLR's(Full Length Runs).A couple of my runs were fast and clean and the rest were sloppy and slow.Straight after the session we had the 5th and final selection event for WSAS.This event composed of 1 lap test and a 3 lap test.I did a new Pb on the lap test breaking my old record of 29:90 and doing a 28 flat,i was very pleased with that result.My 3 run lap test was clean and by the end the effects of the morning session were showing.I struggled to get over the finish line......well not really.I think i was the fastest on that one as well.

After paddling on Saturday my dad and I went and saw the long awaited DaVinci Code.The movie was awesome.For those of you have read the book you will notice a few parts that are missing and how they rush the movie in some sections,turning maybe 10 chapters in the book into 1 or 2 mins of footage,and
Today it was an early start again for an 8:15 session.Today we had a coaching clinic which 12 of us did.WE did an early session followed by video analysis then had a couple hours to relax.We chose to chuck a vortex around the stadium and yes we did lose it in the water several times.

After lunch it was back into the boat and onto the course for another Whitewater session.
We were all a bit dissapointed this morning when Duncan refused to turn all 5 pumps on simutaneously.At the current water height when all pumps are turned on at once all the water in the pond is gone.The weir stopper yesterday was awesome adn last drop was a 2 metre plummet into concrete.

For those who dont know who this is-it is Tim Eynon doing one of his usual stunts

Back From Nymbioda

Hello all well it is good to be back home after a long trip in the car and a long weekend of races.We arrived on saturday afternoon and I was straight into padlding.Matt percival and I paddled the tennis court rapid at around 50% , his slalom boat shows that it should not be paddled at that volume,i cannot wait to paddle the court at 100%.

The races were moved forward due to lack of water so we did not have a day to bludge it was straight into it.The course most would say was very interesting with many upstream gates being placed on the same side as the last upstream hmmm. Womens K1 Mens C2 C1 and Mixed C2 were off in the morning.Penrith paddlers brung home a swag off medals,well done to all who won a medal .I had no races until the second session in the arvo so I bummed taking pictures and experimenting with my camera for most of the day.After first runs in K1 i was 5 seconds clear of the next paddler in my age group,second runs saw me lose several seconds on touches and stalling but I managed to pick up my first CHS Gold Yay.That night we all went down to the pub to play a bit of pool and have a bite to eat, Dave Kennedy and I teamed up and we won the first game but lost the second game to chris and gage.After presentations many of us went to the powerstation and had a look around.Karel and I found some foam and chucked it into the rapids.Some of it was still in the waves the next night.

Monday was the last day of events for many people including myself.I chose to enter myself in the wildwater sprints at the last minute and won myself another gold... BUT... the convenor merged the K1 and SK1 classes which meant I got a silver and the gold went to Bryan Wilson ARGHH,i was contemplating on letting someone else get it for me but I had to show some sportmanship.
That night Karl,Ben,Jess Ali and I made a massive fire and sat back and relaxed.It was a very good way to end a busy weekend . NExt morning I sleeped in and packed up and was on the road by 900.Started reading the Da Vinic Code also on the way up,it is really good so far.Well Ill post the results when they are put on the net.

Bungy Jumping

I reccommend that if you ever get the chance to bungy jump do it.We bungy jumped over in New Zealand while staying at taupo and it was money well spent.Gage,Maddy,Karl,Ben and I all did the plunge off the 50 m high platform,Karl and Ben touched the water while Maddy and Gage chose to go together.Good times.

Cool Stopper

Hello all , Well the flat water lake at Pws has dropped a bit and today their was a little weir stopper.It is not as good as the one which Gage and I surfed last week but it is getting their.Today Ben H and Ian got stuck in there for around a minute.In that time they hit each other with their boats several times and came close to rolling.Here are some pics , it looks small but remember appearances can be decieving.

New Zealand Pics....At Last

Here are several pictures from the 2006 Jnr Dev Tour. These photos are of things other then paddling, I am still waiting on the good shots from the riverbank.Cant remember if it was either flying out or flying into Sydney but it is a sick shot.Well we managed to get away with this.The boys in cabin D(for memory Karl Cj and Gage)left their heater on to dry their gear.We arrived back from presentation to find that they had left the remote ("to my dvd player" cough cough) in front of the heater and that was the end result.Gage posing behind the pain of glass that Ben H broke with his forearm,well it wasn't Ben but a combination of Maddy and Tash slamming the door into Ben. We had a brief stop at some mud pools.Hey Hey look out its Judderbars.In New Zealand they call their speedhumps Judderbars.

Overnight Rainfall

Well I woke up this morning to see that it had been raining all night and this caused the lake at the stadium to rise by a fair amount.Gage and I originally planned to surf the stopper in our boats and also body surf.We were botjh dissapointed to see that it only turned into a little green wave.Gage was very ..very angry ohh well next time.
Today was my first day back at regular school after a busy week of exams.Even though I feel confident that I will get good marks i was dreading each class thinking what if I get my marks back.

This weekend we are going to Nymboida to paddle either Goolang creek or the Nymboida rapid.This is the site of Combined High Schools.Hopefully the Goolnag will be running and we wont have to paddle on the shitty piece of rapid upstream.
Here are some random pictures that I thought would look cool.
We tried to block the weir at glenbawn The girls are in the ball and all the guys are lying on the ground
Gage what were you thinking

First post using blogspot YAY!!!

Hey everyone well this is my first post using blogspot.com.So far I am very impressed.This weekend was full of things to do,racing working and mothers day.This weekends racing saw the juniors fighting for a position in the Western Sydney Academy.Saturdays Racing was awesome for other people except me.I had two recircs overall and many touches which kept me out of the top four ending up in fifth place.Ben Miller raced very well and picked up the first place followed by Phil Gibbons and Ben Horlyck.I had the night to think about what i did wrong and how I could change it.

After getting some feedback from Wayne and Mike Druce it was tiome to go out and paddle .After first runs I was sitting in 3rd spot behind Phil Gibbons and Gage Harrison.Gage had a blinder which was clean and fast.Dissapointed with my result i went out and with an all or nothing approach.By gate four things were going good until I missed gate four and had to go back for it.The bottom section had to be the run of my life because it was enough to move me into first place.Instead of medals we got boxes of chocolates which I ate fairly quickly.It was then time to go straight back into the cafe until 5:30 which was very annoying but hay ive got 40 years of working ahead of me so I better get used to it now.Tomorrow Gage Ben and I are going to body surf the weir at the stadium which should be interesting,Hopefully their will be no overnight rainfall and it will be a very good stopper.