World Kayak Event Coverage

Sunday August 23rd – Riviere St-Charles, Salaberry-De-Valleyfield, Quebec.

All summer we have been fortunate to be able to host a series of Freestyle events for World Kayak here in the Seaway Valley. Each event turned up new paddlers willing to give competitive kayaking a chance and show what they could do on the features of the Riviere St-Charles. This Sunday was the best of the series!
23 paddlers joined us on the river for our last event of the season. 9 of the paddlers were kids under the age of 16 and 8 of the paddlers were girls (of all ages).

Registration took place at noon on what turned out to be a hot and humid sunny day. there were load of people on the water and many of them are still hesitate to participate. But that is OK too
At 1:00 PM we called an end to registration and rounded up the paddlers for the pre-competition chat. There were a lot of nervous paddlers particularly among the kids. We had 3 new paddlers who had not yet been on a wave to surf!! Sweet!
So the order of the day was Juniors and beginners first on Mini-wave, intermediate/advanced women on bob and then intermediate/advance men on Manic.

The kids:
What can we say, from new to seasoned we saw some great performances, smiles and courage!!!
Aaron, Alyssa (Both looking great in their pink Jackson boats) and Alex (Red Star) got on a wave for the first time ever and stood up to the stresses of trying a competition and surfing! Nicely done. And now your paddling experience will really turn up I expect to see some serious improvement from these 3 in the next months and through the winter. Pay attention and lets see how fast they improve for next season’s events!!!!
Andrew (Red Jackson Shooting Star) rocked it with great boat control, some old school paddle twirls and huge smiles!! Zachary and the others should watch for this kid next year.
Sam, in the black CReW Jackson Shooting star surfed and did spins. His improvement over the summer was incredible. Another one to watch!
Zachary Hakvoort, 13 years old and well over 6 feet in a my Jackson Super Star did a fine job at surfing and playing with the old school moves. Has a rockin’ hand roll too Well done Zachary.
Emily (my kid) is turning it up slowly and as she improves watch out. She rides and smiles and put an effort in there for some good points. Well done kiddo.
And then there is Maude: Maude got surfing and decided to sing us a song. The music form her voice and the smiles on her face got her a few extra points along with her excellent surfs.
Marika, our beginner paddler also put in good ride. Not sure if she was going to compete at first, she stepped up to the plate and got out for a couple good surfs and some huge smiles! well done.

All through their rides the parents, spectators, and judges yelled and encouraged the kids. A really excellent show of support.
Equally fun was the number of people who walked up to watch the next 2 events. The kids all came to cheer for their parents and friends while other local paddlers watched and encouraged too. we even saw some local folks from Williamstown, Ontario (CReW’s base) who had heard about the event). Thanks for cheering everyone on.

Intermediate/Advanced Women:
Cheryl, Sylvie and Patricia did a smoking job. Each paddling their own style and for their own reasons. Whether working to advance their skills, playing for fun and at times playing for the camera and judges, these ladies rocked!
Cheryl turned up the challenge with her first coordinated linking of moves. Awesome. Spin to a back deck (Zachary and her call it the spinning donkey ). Sylvie followed her lead stayed close behind her. Patrica was all about the smiles and the spins. She followed Maude’s lead and was singing to impress the judges. Nice.

Intermediate/Advanced Men:
The event was split into 2 heats and the competition was fun and exciting. (FYI: as I am getting older I start thinking that 1 ride per event might be easier than 2…)
Zachary rode first and wowed everyone with his aerial loop and back loop. He also pulled of a couple good cartwheels, spins and surfs. We call Zach a Junior but we make him work with the men. Alexandre (another junior did great spinning and throwing an end. Well done sir!
Francois impressed the crowd with his boat control in the C1. His boat is long and Manic likes to eat long boats but he kicked it and made everyone go “oohhhh”.
Aime-Jean gave us the best performance .He is a solid paddler who can stay in control and link his moves together. This guy is a local paddler who has been playing at this site since he was a kid. Well done A.J.Benoit, Jocelyn, Pierre-Luc, Alexandre, Gabriel, Jonathan and I did our best to push the rest of them and we got some good rides including a few loops, ends, cartwheels, a few good thrashings and some unexpected moves too.

After 3 hours of competition everyone was tired but smiling. The kids went back to swimming in the rapids while Sylvie and Cheryl counted the final points.
Here is how it ended:

Juniors:

Zachary Z.    99.5
Andrew    27
Alexandre L.    22
Samuel    20
Emily    11
Zach H.    10
Aaron    6
Maude    6
Alex   5
Alissa   4
Women:

Cheryl     25
Sylvie      24.5
Patrizia   20.5
Marika     7.5

Mens:

Aime-Jean   119
Francois      78.5
Benoit          45
Robert         40.5
Gabriel         38.5
Jocelyn         30
Alexandre     29
Pierre-Luc    17
Jonathan      16

Once the points were announced and thanks to the generosity of the World Kayak and Local Sponsors, we were able to hand out some awesome prizes for participation. As always the prizes were drawn by their peers and everyone walked away happy.

Loads of pictures and video clips for you to enjoy: CLICK HERE FOR PICTURES AND VIDEO CLIPS

The highlight for me was definitely having the privilege of standing in the water with the kids and helping them to experience the world of paddling.
This was followed closely by the joy of watching the families and friends cheer on their kids, siblings and buddies.

Thanks again to all the people who participated, World Kayak, World Kayak Sponsors and H2O Performance Paddles (our local sponsor) for making this possible for us. Thanks Cheryl for sticking it out with us all summer and helping us organize and manage the events (and providing superb competition for Sylvie).
And… also my wife, partner and best friend, Sylvie and our kids (Emily and Zachary) for supporting me and letting me share the passion with all of you. Could not do it without them

Hope to see you all on the Riviere St-Charles at one of our events in 2010.

Till then, See you on a river somewhere

Robert Zwanenburg.
www.cornwallwhitewater.com