Nearly There...

Team training is finished, the opening ceremony is tomorrow and the final preparations for the comp are being made! We had a productive time at the final team training session this afternoon, everyone has the wave pretty much dialled in by now and some of the Irish guys are going huge. Shane Little in particular has a couple of big moves that he is throwing down pretty consistently, while the Kelleher brothers are probably less consistent but both are throwing some huge front and back Pan-Ams which will get them big scores in competition. The juniors are also doing great, the extra time that they have spent out here is really showing and they are consistently throwing down some great blunts and back blunts, along with the occasional Pan-Am. My own paddling is still all over the place, I'm occasionally getting some nice helixes, Pan-Ams and air screws but struggling to get them all into one ride. Fingers crossed it will all come together on the day of the competition! Bar the top five or ten competitors who are consistently throwing down ridiculous rides, Garb is so fast and foamy that everyone else seems to be struggling to lay down a couple of big moves in a row. It looks like it's all to play for on competition day!

Thankfully, it looks like there's going to be a lot more down-time at this comp than we got over in Spain! A few of the lads are gone to a demolition derby in Cobden and there's a paddling movie night at Wilderness Tours tonight, tomorrow the organisers are feeding everyone after the opening ceremony and the following couple of evenings all seem to have  some kind of entertainment lined up. So it looks like it's going to be a great comp, regardless of if it ends with the losers party on Friday night or Finals on Saturday! The comp kicks off with Squirt on Monday and the Men's K1 prelims are on Wednesday. It's all going to be streamed live here so keep an eye out!

Update from the Ottawa

The Irish team is in town! After a couple of days hanging around Garb by myself and getting to know all of the Aussie, English and German paddlers who also arrived early the Irish team started to trickle in. By now we're almost all here and set up with our own luxury log cabin and transport, naturally including one all-American, 5L Ford F150 pick-up truck! It can only carry marginally more people and boats than my Ford Fiesta but you know, when in Rome and all that... Team training kicked off two days ago and it's going great so far. The two Kellehers especially hopped on the wave and immediately looked like they had been here for weeks with some huge blunts, pan-ams and back blunts! Tom Dunphy is also looking really strong, the amount of time that he has put in on Garb over the last few months is really showing. The rest of the team are working hard to catch up, starting with getting the feel of throwing moves on a totally new feature and then putting those moves into a ride that offers the potential for scoring maximum points in competition.

I have a bit of a head start and the competition ride is starting to come together. It's not as consistent as I would like yet but we have another week before men's prelims. Coming out a few weeks early was definitely a good call; waiting times for a ride on the wave are over 20 minutes outside team training times, and the team training slot only guarantees around 5 rides on the wave per day. Not a lot of time for learning moves! At the same time, the wave is so physical that there's only so much paddling that the body can take in a day. Huge numbers of paddlers here are carrying back and shoulder injuries and relying on medical grade duct-tape to hold them together on the wave. So the goal for everyone at this stage is to polish off the ride while tapering down the training to minimise the risk of getting injured, and also be as fresh as possible when the competition starts. Fingers crossed it'll all go to plan! Garb is awesome; super fast, fairly retentive and there's the potential for big air when everything goes right. It's so big and foamy that it's quite difficult to land moves consistently but the top couple of paddlers are having no problems. The winning ride will most likely contain two air screws, four pan-ams, two helixes, two pistol flips and a couple of blunts! There are a few paddlers landing that kind of ride in training and the title will probably go to whoever can get the most huge and clean bonuses.

There's a great vibe around the campsite here and it's really started to fill up in the last couple of days. Everyone is pretty chilled out about the comp and up for having the craic in the evenings; there's been some great multi-national games of soccer, volleyball and pool so far, as well as one or two pretty full-on parties! Loads of different countries are represented which is great to see and the topic of conversation has generally revolved around ripping the piss out of each other's accents and national stereotypes! The comp kicks off on Sunday, and will be streamed live. It's going to be epic to watch, the likes of Dane Jackson, Matt Doumoulin, Bren Orton and a bunch of others have been going huge in training so definitely check it out!

For another paddler's perspective on the worlds to date check out James Rowlinson's blog at http://shenanteryakking.blogspot.ca/. It's got some great descriptions of Garb and everything else we've been getting up to recently!

Countdown to Canada!

So the kayaking gear is drying out, and pretty much everything else that I own is in various piles while I figure out how to pack it all... looks like it's time for another World Championships! I've spent the last week or two back on the west coast of Ireland with the tent, hunting for surf in order to squeeze in some last minute training before flying out. No more bike transport for me this time; I start a job soon after I get back in Septemer which I'll need a car for, so I cleared out the bank accounts, borrowed some money from the parents and ended up with an electric blue Ford Fiesta! The day after picking up the car I was off on a 500km road trip around the south-west coast of Ireland; camping, fishing, snorkelling, meeting up with friends and of course kayaking. 

Of course, one of the first things I did with the new car was test out how it goes off-road! Answer; not well at all! The old Project 52 does fit in well though, along with enough other toys to keep me entertained for a few days! Thanks to the two Anthonys for the push and Aisling Griffin for the photo! 

In keeping with the rest of the summer, the last few weeks have been pretty terrible for surf and the waves that I have found havn't been ideal training for a big, powerful Canadian river wave! Looking at videos of Garb that other competitors have been uploading over the last couple of days it's going to be a serious step up in terms of power and will be great fun to try and learn to control! Irish junior team members Rob Kierans and Jack Ledwith are out there already and seem to be doing a great job of dialling the wave in so hopefully it will all come together in the end. As well as having a new wave to get the hang of, I've decided it's finally time to move on from the Project 52 and I'm picking up a shiny new 2016 Jackson Kayaks Rockstar when I get there. I'm sure it'll take a couple of sessions to catch up on about ten years of boat development but by all accounts the boat is ripping it up out there and I'm really looking forward to getting to know it! 

 As a last minute fundraiser the Irish freestyle team are holding a comedy gig in the Laughter Lounge in Dublin on Thursday. It promises to be a great night out as well as generating a couple of more euro to put towards accommodation and stuff so if anyone is free on Thursday would be great to see you there!

So that's about it for the moment. I'm flying out from Dublin on Friday morning and will hopefully be in town on Thursday for the comedy gig. The competition will be streamed live here so if you're free between the 30th of August and the 5th of September make sure to check it out! I'll see if I can update this while I'm out there but since I havn't been able to get another smartphone after mine got fried in Spain I've a feeling I won't be able to. So keep the fingers crossed for some respectable results in Canada and I'll definitely get another update put up here very soon after we get back!