World Kayak Event Coverage

Last night was the last event of the 08’ Reno Hometown Throwdown series. I had hoped to host a Slalom Survivor event, but that was not to be. Olympian Joe Jacobi introduced me to his Slalom Survivor event last year at the Whitewater Symposium and I had a blast! Look for these great events mixed in next year along with the freestyle events all around the country. The excessively large quantity of non-boaters enjoying the park prevented us from using the South channel. When I say large quantity think of biblical plagues of locust and you will get the idea. Once Toby, with his sage like wisdom, showed up we went to plan B. We found the least populated part of the park and had a sprint race downstream around the “Pigeon Rock” that Ruth was officiating from and then back all the way up to the start. From the looks on most of the competitor’s faces I think that almost no one had ever attained before! The start was the most exciting part of the race. We had the racers start with their bows facing upstream and they had to start with a backwards sprint for 20 meters or so before they could turn around and really step on the gas. This provided everything a spectator could want. There was shoving, running others onto the rocks, and even a bit of skirt pulling in the preliminary between Kyle Blaine.
There were four preliminary heats of two where the winner advanced, and one heat of three with long boats where the top two advanced. In the women’s preliminary heat “Roller Derby” Dawn edged out Mary ”The Women’s rock of the Throwdown”. The long boat heat had Charles, Shane “I won’t finish last”, and Clint. Charles had the early lead but at the turn he lost the edge and Clint and Shane advanced. Trevor our only JR this month manned up to race with the big boys, and he ended up against Tyler. In the end age won out over youth and Tyler advanced. Our final heat saw Miles borrowing a skirt and Jesse “Mr. Skin to Wind” return to his natural state for the win.
The semi-finals saw some more heated action as Dawn and Blaine lined up for round two. For fear of a roller derby beat down Blaine wisely avoided the skirt pulling this round. Clint and Shane line up for Long boat showdown round two. Mother nature once again slapped the Reno Throwdown with another twist. Since our neighboring state of California is on fire we had a healthy dose of smoke. Word on the street was that the smoke would help out Shane by hurting the other racers lungs more than his seasoned lungs. We will have to wait and see. The last of the semi-final heats had Tyler and Jesse. This set of races left us with a final heat of three that included Clint, Jesse, and Blaine.
Our final three got off to a rough start that had some high quality shoving and jockeying for position all before they got to turn around. When it was all over and the smoke had not cleared Clint was in first, Jesse took second, and Blaine rounded out the top three. As far as I can tell boaters in Reno are gluttons for punishment! Once the final race was over we had some folks who wanted a hand-paddling race. Dawn took on Trevor and that race dissolved as it progressed down stream as the racers noticed that Ruth was no longer on the rock. Clint and Tyler also wanted more punishment, and it looks like fatigue set in for Clint and Tyler spanked him in a much shorter boat.
Thanks to everyone who came down to the park this year to participate in the Throwdowns! Our WK Throwdown Sponsors provided bunches of fantastic prizes to keep everyone motivated. A big thanks goes out to Toby, our Reno WK ambassador, for all of his hard work this year. There were a number of other people who were kind enough to donate their time to help all the events run Hope, Rose, Newt, and Reno’s newest addition Ruth who managed to make it to all of the events as the head judge. I look forward to next year!

Later ; Colin