Wednesday, February 8, 2012

Sluice Rodeo

Last weekend another freestyle competition was held at Sluice in Dublin. Its a long drive up so myself and Ethan O'Brien headed up on Saturday and the plan was to meet up with Niamh Cleary, the Farrels and Dave Holden for a paddle. We were hoping that the Glenmacnass or something like that would be working since apart from the Annamoe I havnt paddled any rivers up in Wicklow. Unfortunatly the water levels didnt play ball but the Annamoe was running as always so we had a fun run down that instead. That evening we went to Lacken Kayak Clubs pool session in Clondalkin, apparently it was a quiet one with "only" about 30 kids in the pool compared with the 50 that they sometimes have but the ones that were there were flying. If they all keep it up then Lacken Kayak Club is going to be one to watch out for in the nest few years!

The Sluice rodeo the next day was some craic, despite the baltic weather. Its been ages since I paddled in Sluice so we headed up fairly early to have some time to get used to the feature again before the competition started. Its no Gower but by the time the competition I started I was getting the hang of the place again and blunts and stuff were starting to feel pretty smooth. The competition was run in a 15 minute jam session format with everyones top 5 moves counting, which is great because it allows people to risk going for big moves without worrying about flushing off the wave. My heat went pretty good. I got a few spins, blunts and roundhouses out of the way at the start, and then spent the rest of the heat going for back blunts and loops. In the end I managed to land enough to put me in 5th place, only 20 points behind the winner, Moe Kelleher. I'm happy enough with the result, since its a really tricky feature and the top three places were all taken by locals who know the place like the back of their hands!

Huge thanks to Gerry and Tom Cleary for giving me and Ethan food and floor space for the weekend, much appreciated! The next competition thats coming up is a big one, the kayaking intervarsities in Castlebar in two weeks time. Cant wait to have a fair go at defending last years title at this one, we've been putting a lot of work into training for it recently! Its going to be epic! Full results from Sluice are below.

Results:

Junior Men
Alan Murphy 135
Billy Brett 105
Conor Macken 90
Shane Little 90
Robbie O' Shea 90
Mathew Cassin 85
Conal Murphy 80
David Mclure 80
Tom Gallione 70
Craig Cummins 60
Daniel Burke 40

Sport Men
Niall Power 80
Kevin Niland 40

Sport Women
Maria 65
Rosseane 55

Expert Women
Niamh Cleary 115
Aisling Griffin 105
Muireann Lynch 95

Expert Men
Moe Kelleher 160
Neill Gibson 155
Adrian Durrant 150
Barry Loughnane 145
Tom Dunphy 140
Eoin Keyes 140
John O' Rourke 115
Ronnie Brennan 110
Colm Healy 100
Daniel O' Broin 60
Conor Mathews 50
Kevin McCabe 0

Heres a pretty sweet video from the day by Conor Macken, looking good!

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