Once again I was impressed by my new hometown of Reno, NV!!  We had worse weather than our first event, the water level dropped 24 hours prior to go time, and we still had more people show up and compete than last month!!  I cannot wait to see what will happen when we get a quality weather day along with some good flow.  It has been great to see the number of folks in the whitewater park over the last month getting ready for the next throwdown. 

Jesse Carlson hands down wins the polar bear award.  He went skin to wind in 40-degree temps, a solid breeze, and pure Sierra snowmelt.  Style was back in session this month with a bunch of paddle twirls and smiling faces.  All of the hard work that people put in last month paid off.  It was great to see people having more consistent rides than last month.  Shane Way had one of the most improved performances.  He had one ride that almost doubled his combined score from the first throwdown.  The women’s category saw two new additions with Jessica Yurtinus and Dawn Wiegel.  The ladies had #3 all to themselves this month!  I hope that we have enough water next month so we can have all categories there.  The juniors put on a great show once again.  Trevor Lemay even managed to show up at the last minute with just enough time to sneak in his two rides.  Cory Volt from Team D and Stephen Wright from Team JK gave a great show of what is possible in #5.   

This month we had a special bonus after the on the water festivities.  Phil Boyer came to Reno and after working through all the technical difficulties you could imagine gave us a fantastic look in to his paddling experiences abroad.  The slide show not only had great boating shots, but also in my opinion gave a real feel for traveling and boating abroad.  Thanks again Phil for taking the time to come to contribute to our event and for putting up with our AV problems.  The kind folks at Se7en were kind enough to allow a bunch of stinky boaters to come into their establishment for the slide show. Last but not least I want to thank all of our great volunteers Ruth, Hope, and Newt for two straight months of help.  A big thanks goes out to Toby for taking the time to be the WK Ambassador for Reno and helping to improve our local boating community.  I had a great time with everyone this month and I look forward to a much warmer throwdown in May!

Later ; Colin

K1-A

1.      Scott Sady

2.      Luke L.

3.      Brian Karlin

4.      John Fairchild

5.      Todd Bromley

6.      Shane Way

K1-B

1.      Jesse Carlson

2.      Justin Shaffer

3.      Robby Liebherr

4.      August Teague

5.      Blaine Baker

6.      John Lemay

7.      Steve Bauwens

K1-W

1.      Mary Elliott

2.      Jessica Yurtinus

3.      Dawn Wiegel

K1-JR

1.      Jason Craig

2.      Cameron Bender

3.      John Rolshoven

4.      Trevor LeMay

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Canada may get things done in the cold at their first throwdown, but we get things done with style in Reno! Where else can you have a throwdown where the two volunteer judges are world champs? We also had this short guy with a camera running around claming the he was a national champ as well. Thanks to Toby our Reno WK ambassador and everyone who helped make our first Reno throwdown a huge success. We may not have had great water levels for the first event but we had a great time with a bit of drama thrown in for good measure. Where else can a guy decide that as a kayaker that it is not a good idea to use a paddle, swim after his second ride, and still win the K-1B event. Great job Jay! Mary, who got second in the K-1W class, can no longer claim that she is not a competitive kayaker. You are a seasoned veteran now, and we expect you at all the events from now on including the Reno Festival. We had a great showdown in the K-1JR category between Trevor Lemay and Biscuit Boy, Jason Craig. Both John and Trevor LeMay, father and son, placed in the medals in their respective divisions, nice one! The move of the night had to be by Jon Fairchild in the K-1A class. I did not think we would see it here, but Jon took his life into his own hands and went for the stern grab mid-loop. You could slice the tension in the crowd with a knife. Everyone knew the consequences of what Jon was attempting with the shallow feature. The sigh of relief when Jon landed the move safely was defining. For his bravery, Jon walked away with the coveted Smith sunglasses from the prize raffle. At the end of the night everyone walked away with a prize in hand from our fantastic sponsors Immersion Research, Jackson Kayak, Smith Optics, and Mion. During the course of the evening we had over 60 spectators lining the banks. We put on a great show for Reno. There are bunch of photos of last nights event thanks to two talented photographers. Not only did Scott take 50 photos of the event but also he won the K-1A class!

Results

K-1W

1. Amanda Marusich
2. Mary Elliott

K-1JR
1. Jason Craig aka. Biscuit Boy
2. Trevor LeMay

K-1B
1. Jay
2. Steve Barnums
3. John LeMay
4. Manuel Souza
5. Justin Shanter

K-1A
1. Scott Sady
2. Anthony Ghidossi
3. Jon Fairchild
4. Todd Bromley
5. Brian Karlin
6. Kent McCracken
7. Lucas Dietrich
8. Dan Larkin
9. Shane Way

Scott Sady/TahoeLight.com Gallery

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[Show as slideshow]