In the Men’s Kayak Class- Nick Troutman and Stephen Wright dominated the finals with rides in the 900’s in their All-Stars. Peter Czonka had a great first ride at 540 points to take third. Mathieu and Dustin did well but didn’t have their best scores today, getting in the low 400’s.

The overall World Cup Results for K1 Men were:

Peter Czonka- Slovakia- Project
Nick Troutman- Canada- All-Star
Dustin Urban- USA- All-Star

In the Women’s Class today Emily took an early lead with 150 points. Shortly after in second rides, Ruth Gordon took over that first place position. In third rides Marianne Seather took the first place position from Ruth with 220 points, but Emily was yet to go. On Emily’s final ride, she gave it hard and had her best ride of the competition and got a 226 point ride, just 6 points ahead for the win! Ruth ended up third.

In the World Cup overall it was:

Emily Jackson- USA- Star
Ruth Gordon- Canada- Star
Fiona Jarvie- Great Britain, Star

In the junior Men’s Class it was also a huge scoring round. Dane went first and got a 410 point ride which is super high for the juniors. Jason followed it up with a 443 point ride to take the lead and Sebastian got a 423 point ride to put him in second. Nobody was able to touch those scores or improve them in the next two rides. Sam from Switzerland was 5th and the Netherlands Tom was 4th.

In the overall Junior World Cup results:

Sebastian – France- Gui Gui kayak
Jason Craig- USA- Star
Michael Palmer- USA, All-Star

In the OC1 Class

Jez Blanchard took it all and had good rides.

In the C1 Class

Today it was Dave from England who dominated again for the win. Dane had a great ride as well to get into second place. Alexandre from France was in third.

For overall World Cup, it was Stefan from Czech but I am not sure after that.

“Jasper the friendly host” of the judges, the chief Judge, did a great job not only getting the thing going exactly on time, but also speaking to the crowd to let them know what is up before hand.     “Each kayaker gets two rides, best ride counts.   The best five rides will be rewarded with a trip to the finals tomorrow.  The other five will be rewarded with a night of music, dancing, and parties with no need to get to bed early.”

The lights made a crazy looking arena that once you paddle in, by yourself, coming out of total darkness, you are in the spot light, with the crowd just a deafening noise, and the MC’s just a voice from the darkness, and the music blasting from every direction.  The hole was very easy to see, as it was well lit.    Just don’t make the mistake of looking all around into the stands as the lights are burning hot and when you look back at the hole you just see a bright spot where you were hoping to find the green water and the foam-pile. 

The rides started off with Stepan paddling hard and nailing 50% of his moves, but flushing early.   Casper, from the Netherlands was next and must have had his share of the “Big Energy Shock” drinks they were giving out as he went nuts in the hole, getting some awesome moves, but also missing a bunch.  He did, however, throw a ton of them that did count.   Stephen Wright nailed his second ride and got what looked like 4 major moves, plus an aerial entry move for 100 points and while he still isn’t on fire, he is ramping up nicely.  We’ll see how that round leaves him for tomorrow.   Eddie Smith was another one that had a flurry followed by a few bobbles, followed by a flurry.  Eddie threw down most of the time and had a few moves that were likely with huge bonuses.   Tomasz from Poland started with a huge air loop followed by some sweet McNasties and a phonics monkey but bobbled on his Tricky Woo which is usually his best move.   He still may be a contender.

In the second heat – top 5 in Quarter-finals-  Mathieu started things off with what set the new record for too much energy drink and looked like a punk rocker doing a stage dive.   He threw his boat around from one direction to the other so fast and so often that I stopped trying to score it in my head.  Racking up a ton of the little moves from spins, to clean spins to super clean spins to cartwheels to clean cartwheels to tricky woos, to front loops space godzillas, to McNasties, etc.  whew!    His solo dance time was well used and the crowd went nuts.   He never once looked like he was worried about flushing, and he never did until the end of his second ride.   Awesome.

My first ride was a train wreck, where I  got my momentum going with three big moves, just fast enough to kill myself with my 4^th move and run off the tracks into the ditch!  I was not going to move on with my first ride.     I opted for starting in the eddy to get my eyes used to the light and feel the music pounding on me in advance of dropping in.   No need to totally shock the whole system at once.   My second ride started off like the stars were aligned as the opening Phonics Monkey popped me up into the air giving me that,  “oh yea, here we go!” feeling.  I popped off my Righty moves first in the more retentive part of the hole and managed a smile or two and even took my time setting up a couple of times, but was a little slower than expected and I still needed a major lefty move and only had three seconds.   I dropped my edge and initiated as hard as I could to get the bow around for a lefty Air McNasty and even lifted my chin up for a little extra air as the 45 second horn was blowing and tucked and opened up as hard as I could trying to make my boat slap the water loud enough for the judges to hear it over the crowd and music.   Whether they heard it or not, it occurred to me that this was the exact same move I threw at the exact same moment (last possible moment) to secure the win at the 2007 Worlds on Buseater.   I don’t know that I won this round, just that I am confident that I’ll move on to tomorrow, but until the results come in, who knows.

Dustin Urban went right after me and I was off downstream in the dark again, after leaving the Thunderdome and taking out below, so I never got to see him but the crowd was deafening and Jez was calling out a flurry of moves.  I assume he did really well.  

Peter Czonka from Slovakia may well be the top seed after the semi-finals as his first ride was as if he was a machine.   He was the “Ice Man” from Top Gun, picking off the moves with more ease than the scribes could make a check mark I the box next to the moves name.   Both Tricky Woos, all McNasty and a phonics, as well as some cartwheely moves and a loop.   He was not looking nervous as his comments suggested earlier today.  Perhaps he was testing my thoughts on how I would feel about the night time event.   Either Way, WOW!  Peter’s second ride was a disaster as he flushed on most of his moves and there was no way to make it better than his first ride.  Best ride counts so no issue.

Nick Troutman make a righty McNasty and Righty Phonics Monkey his personal slave with nothing to do but serve him.    His confidence when throwing them is so high he never hesitates and he never misses, and he usually goes huge!   We train with the motto,  “Don’t try to do the move, just do it.”  And he takes that to the next level.   He did miss his air-loop on the first ride, and his second ride was not as good, but the first ride had the crowd in a riot and the MC’s were distorting the speakers on top of the music. 

Results (Aproximate scores…)

1. Peter Csonka- Slovakia  (Silver Medalist 2007 Worlds)           970
2. EJ-                   USA         (Gold Medalist 2007 Worlds)            930
3. Dustin Urban-   USA         (World Squirt Boat champion)         850
4. Nick Troutman- Canada   (Bronze Medalist 2007 Worlds)        750
5. Mathieu Domoulin- France (European Champion)                   675

Emily took a few photos of the action, and was looking quite cute with her hair in braids.    I will be back with results in a few!

Top 5 Women for Tomorrows Finals are:

1. Fiona Jarvie, Great Britain
2. Emily Jackson, USA
3. Juta Kiser, Germany
4. Ruth Gordon, Canada
5. Adrienne Levknecht, USA

The first heat of 5 men had Stephen Wright in it, who got 17th in the prelims. That is an unusual place for world’s biggest air master to be in, so he decided to change his rank in this competition and came out swinging to earn himself a berth in the next round. Stepan Vohradsky, from Czech, was also in the lowest scoring heat to make the quarter finals but made it to the semis, making that two paddlers that were ranked from 16-20 moving up to the top 10. Dustin Urban from the USA, was in the 3rd heat getting a 10th place in the prelims, but decided to throw down the biggest ride of the competition so far with a 1,000 point ride putting him in third place. Thomasz Czaplicky from Poland was also moved up from a 13th in prelims to top 10 to make Semi-finals! In the Top 10 there were plenty of changes in the ranking on this round. The rides were generally better than in the prelims with 3 rides per athlete and only 2 counted. Since the water went up it was a little harder to set up the Phonics Monkey and McNasty, but yet, many of the paddlers did it anyway. There were a lot of Tricky Woos in that round too. It looked like a do or die round for many paddlers just throwing their boat around like a rag doll. Some of them were throwing trash mixed in with some quality moves. The Europeans are quite good at the Tricky Woo I must say!

The Ranking for the top 10 after quarter finals- and only for the next 90 minutes until Semi-finals is:

1. NickTroutman- Canada
2. Peter Czonka- Slovakia
3. Dustin Urban- USA
4. Eric Jackson- USA
5. Mathieu Dumoulin- France
6. Stephen Wright- USA
7. Thomasz Czaplicky Poland
8. Casper van Kalmthout- Netherlands
9. Stepan Vohradsky- Czech Republic

Clay Wright missed out on this round with a 17th place just two out and not by many points.

Now for the last cut of the night for the men- the Semi-Finals where we go from 10 to 5 for the finals tomorrow! Peter Czonka actually told me that he was frightened of paddling under the lights because it was hard. While, he may do great, and I hope he does, it sounds like he is psyching himself out already. I am quite happy to go under the lights. We spent much of last winter under the lights at Rock Island because they released the water at night time. I got to compete in the 2001 Semi-Finals at the Worlds in very similar circumstances- water came up higher and the paddlers were all fired up and nervous with the lights. The weather was nice so there were thousands of spectators. Here the weather is so miserable today that umbrellas, and rain coats, and winter clothes are required! The only spectators are friends and family and other paddlers. I am not watching the junior men go because I need a break from the cold and wet before my event, for example.

Results:

12►

I got to watch the C1 Prelims also and there were a few AWESOME rides that stood out. It will be hard for me to guess top 5, however, so we’ll wait for the official results tonight. Dane went for an aerial entry move and flushed out of the hole and the eddy getting zero on his second ride, which won’t put him in the next round. To add insult to injury, somebody stole his new Ipod from the Van today that I gave him for his birthday. Poor kid is having a rough two days.

The Men’s Kayak Quarter Finals will be shortly and I can’t imagine that the water will stay low. I picture a fast rise during the afternoon. In this case being seeded number one is the worst place to be! I hope it manages to hold steady!

On the sidelines a police dog training group had a variety of dogs known for aggression out training. Rotweilers, German Shepherds, Pit Bulls, etc. We were daring paddlers to try running across the fields to see if they could make it before being attacked. Nobody took us up on it. This photo is of one of the trainers telling the dog, “good doggie, bite harder doggie.”

Ruth Gordon will lead off the Women’s K1 heats this morning at 8am. This means 8:30am by the look of things. She is paddling well and fun to have at the event. Very grounded, funny, and has a great outlook on things. She really adds positive energy to the event. Emily is in a later heat, while Jessie Stone is in the last heat of Women. I got out of the water as the eddy filled up with only women and they had their game faces on.

Yesterday’s prelims went well for me and I was quite please to come in first among so many great paddlers. The French, Germans, British, Americans, Canadians, etc. etc. all going for it and each with a reason why they should be first too.

The All-Star is perfect for this spot. The combination of huge air, slicey ends, and easy to control does the trick. I am very happy that I have the right boat! I can’t imagine being in another boat. The Europeans are still struggling to get them as every single boat we brought over is already spoken for. When you see someone in another brand of boat you normally assume that they want to be, but when they start asking you to buy yours after the World Cup it is clear that there is quite a void between supply and demand.

Time to go watch the women compete. Wish the ladies and C1’s good luck this morning, and then the Men’s Kayak Quarter finals cutting from 20 to 10! This is always a huge cut and not easy to make. Three rides, two counts, everyone knowing that they can’t hold anything back. Then it is wait until it is late and compete under the lights tonight at 10pm for the cut from 10 to 5 for Men, Junior Men, and Women, that will be a site to see! The 10 to 5 cut is nothing but incredible with 2 rides and 1 counts. No holding back there either and it is the final hurdle to get into the medal round. 10 of the best from 30+ countries. 30 countries and only 5 people in the finals. That will be determined tonight! I am getting nervous just writing about it.

The Junior men went second and it started off with a bang with some great rides by Jason Craig in the first heat. The juniors were throwing a flurry of moves of all types. Some had the hard moves like the Phonics Monkey, the McNasty, Tricky Woos, etc., while others threw loops, Space Godzillas, split wheels, cartwheels, clean cartwheels, etc. The skill levels varied and the performance in the competition varied as well. Dane Jackson had a bad day in his rides and didn’t make the cut and the bubble boy was Jonathan Shales, who had been doing awesome all week in practice. Maxime Renault, age 17, from France, tore the hole up and scored big points to take first place. He is a great combination of a very confident, intelligent, cool kid, who also is super friendly and down to earth. Well done by his parents and him for that. Sebastian Devred, also from France took second in the prelims and was also paddling awesome. Michael Palmer (LP) and Jason Craig were the two USA paddlers to take it to the next level by getting in the top 10 with a 3rd and 4th.

In the Senior Mens’ Class, with 15 heats, I wasn’t able to watch each one as I had to eat from time to time! I did see Clay Wright and Nick Troutman go early on in heat 3. They both did awesome! Clay through a flurry of moves in his second ride, consisting of linking split wheels into Space Godzillas, and other cool stuff. Nick focused on the bigger scoring moves and nailed most of them to put the crowd on its feet. I went in heat 6 with Mathieu Dumoulin, the current European Champion, and Eddie Smith from England who also is awesome. It was a great heat to be in as the rides were impressive to watch right before and after my own. I missed my opening move on my first ride, but went to a fast plan B and nailed a quick cartwheel flurry, with two linked splits, a clean, and cartwheel right into a Phonics Monkey Right (my opening move after my entry move). They made the Macho Move Entry illegal as there is a board that makes the hole that they don’t want us pogoing off of. I don’t know if I hit many of my bonuses (huge air bonus), but the best I can gather from the score I got two on each ride.

The results didn’t come out until the end of the day so nobody knew how they were doing. I just found out at dinner that I had won the first round and even though I tried to keep a straight face about it when eating with Jessie and Ruth, I had a permanent smile on my face during dinner. I felt very fortunate to have two good rides (880 and 860) in a row when they both count. At the end of the day, the results for prelims only matter if you miss the cut. We all are back to zero. Tomorrow is the BIG day! Tomorrow all classes cut down to the final 5 for Sunday’s finals! In the men’s K1 class, we’ll do a Quarter-Finals at 11:30am and then a night-time Semi-finals at 10pm under the lights! The last time we had a major international round this late at night was in Sort, Spain at the 2001 World Championships for the Semi-Finals that started at 11:30pm! If it is anything like that night, people were wired, frazzled, and fired up but not paddling at their best as the nerves, the lights, and the hype of a stadium of rowdy fans were cheering and creating havoc! I hope it is like that again since I remember it well and think I can handle it.

EJ

This morning I woke at 5:45am after having to move into the van at 2am due to rain. I am sleeping in a sleeping bag on my boat bag on the grass. Three of the past 5 days I have been woken up to rain in the night. I paddled until 7:30 am and then got out and coached the USA team from 8-9am. At 9am, I hosted a USA/Canada Team Meeting to see if there were any questions or ideas about the rules before we went into this final rule setting meeting. At 9:30 I arrived at the meeting, late, and without breakfast. We broke for lunch at 1pm, but I wanted to do another training session during an “open session” and went paddling. I was weak, tired, thirsty, and dizzy. I did 5 rides that were OK, but not good. The meeting started at 2:30pm again, where we had left off on the hole moves and it was time to discuss the wave moves, combos, big air bonuses, entry moves, etc. I brought some cocoa puffs and ate them dry. At 5:30pm we met at the hole to put into action the written rules we just tweaked. WOW! France judges much different than the USA, as does Russia, and more. The European judging tends to be much more strict. What does this mean? Is it good or bad? Well, it means that people are less encouraged to try hard moves for sure. Which may be one reason that the Europeans tend not to do the hardest moves as often. The North Americans may practice their moves sloppier than the Europeans because of that and not have the same quality in some cases. It is interesting for sure. The good news is that there is a spirit of cooperation I haven’t seen between North America, the Africas, Australia/New Zealand, and Europe in this sport since the New Zealand World Championships in 1999, and this time it is way better!

I finished at 6:30pm and was so tired, thirsty, and hungry that I wasn’t sure I could make it to the restaurant. I walked the 15 minutes there, stopping at the grocery store first, only to find it closed (no water for the night). I went alone, not wanting to say another word for the day if possible. I ordered two orders of crepes, two cappuccinos, and four small bottles of water to go. It felt good to just sit and eat, finally at 7pm for the first time. If Kristine were here she would kill me! She assures that I eat, sleep, drink, train, etc. on time, and properly. She would have been in this meeting in my proxy, of course, but is pre-disposed with little KC.

I did get to watch Peter Czonka do a practice ride tonight and it was incredible! While he only got third in the European Championships, (silver in World Champs last year), he is showing that he is clearly one of the men to beat! I had to see it to be sure, and now I have. Whoa- we have some serious competition in the Europeans!

Tomorrow I have one final day of rules/judging meetings. This time we are actually taking a written test, and then a verbal judging test to get our official ICF judging cards for Freestyle. While I would have called BS on the whole concept before, I am very much a believer, since it creates communication between the new judge and the existing judges and ICF which means everyone learns and improves.

Back to my poor status as an athlete. I now aim to recover ASAP. I have paddled so hard from the Spring in California, Nevada, etc., to Colorado, to the Grand Canyon, and then to the Ottawa to prepare for this logging more 4+ weeks at a time without a day off. Now I am here and have been doing 3-4 sessions each day, getting up early, training hard, eating OK, sleeping not so OK, and then these meetings. With only three days until the Competition starts, it is time to let the brain and body regroup and be ready. I am running on fumes, with a well tuned up engine. Time for fuel and to cool off. I do still have the issue that I haven’t been able to check email for 4 days as I was email bombed with a full mail box of 133mb including 12,000+ emails. I can’t clean it up from here and it is hard enough to get in a 3 mb file! I hope the folks at the JK factory have cleaned up for me so I can try tomorrow. My Verizon cell phone doesn’t work in Europe, and my email is in disarray. So the “how’s Kristine?” and the “how are things at the factory?” questions can’t be answered by me at the moment. You will most likely be reading this update and my last one at the same time, sorry!

I won the 2004 Pre-Worlds, the 2005 Worlds, the 2006 World Cup, and the 2007 Worlds. This is each of the major international comps of the past 4 years. In 2004 there wasn’t a world cup, just a pre-worlds. Coming into the 2008 World Cup, I clearly have a big bulls-eye on my back. Whether it be from my future son-in-law Nick, or Peter Czonka, or Stephen Wright, Clay, or the other 87 athletes from 30+ countries, they at least are looking to see if my “time has come”. This isn’t much different for me than in 2002 when I was coming off of winning the 2000 Pre-Worlds, and the 2001 World Championships. Unfortunately for me in 2002 and 2003 I got 5th and 4th. I made my “comeback” to the top of the podium in 2004. I have a long streak of winning and losing. I won in 1993, then failed to go to Pre-Worlds in 1994, then lost in 1995 (I tore a rib muscle in the first 30 seconds of my first finals ride), then got 6th in 1996, 2nd in 1997 at the World Championships. In 1998 I won every round until I got knocked out in a knockout finals in 4th place, and then in 1999 I won up to the round I flushed off the wave twice on my first move getting 9th in that World Championships in New Zealand. Each time I felt ready and able to win, but often, I did not. My recent streak is my longest ever. With so many variables in between the prelims and winning the finals, it is always “anything can happen day”. Will I get my opening hard move? Will I get the huge bonus on my moves, as I am counting on for 50% of the big ones? What will the other paddlers get? Will they perform like rock stars, like Dustin Urban did on his final ride in Vail this year, or will they have average rides during finals under the pressure of the crowd, the desire for the win, and the fear of the unknown? Will they falter entirely? Will I? If we knew the answers, we could all go home and just write down the results and it would be over without going on the playing field.

Well it is now 8:31pm and it is getting dark. I am in dire need of a shower and could get one by going outside in the rain. I have my sleeping pad and bag under the van and am hoping that by the time I brush my teeth the clouds will go away and I can sleep outside.

It was a typical, “OK, here we go training session”. There were too many people that we didn’t know, all jumping in and bumping around in the eddies. The eddies that we stage up in to go into the hole are like sitting on the side of a wave pool, with weird currents. The sides of my boat are worn more than the hull from rubbing up and down and all around against the sides of the concrete. I am developing a callous on my forearms from holding onto the wall while sitting in the eddy! While we have been training already, today was the first session where it was, OK, the relaxed, do your normal thing type of training is done, and now it is, see what is happening, who is doing what, and jump into a situation that is different every time.

It started raining at 7:45am this morning and I slept under the stars last night and left my sleeping bag wide open and outside. I wanted to do one more ride but knew my bag was getting soaked as I sat in the eddy upstream of the hole waiting to try a Macho Move into the hole. It was to be my last ride and I was torn between getting a last ride and sleeping in a dry bag tonight. I split the difference and did a short ride and split. It was too late, of course, as my bag was already soaked. No worries, because the sun is trying to poke out and perhaps it will dry before nightfall.

Nick just stopped by to talk about training and we both agree that we must have a better plan going into the session from now on. Perhaps it is time to rally the team and create a team plan for coaching each other. Video, Timing, feedback, etc. This will assure that nobody is overwhelmed. It is one thing to show up to an event where you know the best paddlers. It is another thing to show up to an event and have no idea who is the best paddler, and be surprised at how many great paddlers there are and wonder just how good they are. It is stressful for anyone, but especially for paddlers competing at the World level for the first time.

Dane has never one the World Championships or World Cup. That is OK by me as not many people do and he is only 15 now. However, he must really want to win as I have never seen a kid know the competition so well. He can tell you in both C1 and Junior Kayak what each of the competitors he has seen so far can do well and what they can’t.

Emily is in a league of her own for the most part and just tries to get the hard moves down. While every competition is “anything can happen day”, if you want to win a competition, the best name to have is Emily Jackson. I try to push her to do more than she does already, as she would attest to, but it is unbelievable to watch her and see just what she can do.

Stephen Wright and Ruth Gordon should arrive today as well. These are two boaters that are likely to set the World Cup on fire. Stephen got 2nd in the last world cup but for all practical purposes was tied with me. He is on fire and should rock the Czech spot. I am anxious to train with him.

Well, Emily Wall just walked by (British K1W), and a great paddler, and friend and I haven’t said hi yet. That means that Jon Best is here from England as well. Whoa, there is the French coach too, and that means the top French guys are here. Sweet! The Slovakian National Championships are over and the world has arrived!

Time to make my rounds.

See you on the river!

EJ

Meanwhile- the atmosphere is quite relaxed so far with most people acting quite sportsmanlike. No weirdness or mind games going on yet. I think that there is a great group of athletes here at this event.

Time to get some dinner, my last before the trials! What to eat???? Hmm- how about Chang’s Spicy Chicken! Sweet! Yes, there is a PF Changs, Kristine, and you aren’t here! I am going to fill up on rice, chicken, and lettuce wraps. That is another thing that is throwing off my balance, Kristine isn’t here to lean on! Yes, I am quite spoiled and she is the best person for me to have on the banks for any event. Well, she is still doing something that is making this trials go much better for me. She went back to Albuquerque to pick up the RV that is now ready to roll out after 5 days of getting a new engine in it. A ford re-manufactured triton V10. She is driving it to Reno, so when I arrive, it will be there for the Reno River Festival.

Also- if you want to do a clinic with me in California this next weekend (one week) email me at eric@jacksonkayak.com . If you want to do one in Reno, also email me, but I don’t have the date set yet. (1.5 weeks approx)