Finally, after months of false starts due to unpredictable water levels, this weekend we managed to run trials for the Irish team going to the freestyle world championships in Ottawa in August. Barry Loughnane did a great job of putting everything together for the weekend; water levels were just what we asked for, there were tunes on the bank of the river and the weather was the best it's been so far this year! Which makes a nice change from getting hypothermia while waiting for your heat, which is what usually happens when the team trials event happens mid-winter as planned!
The juniors relaxing in the eddy before the comp. Congrats to Jack Ledwith, Sean Cahill and Rob Kierans for making the team! Photo by Diarmuid Moloney.
When it was announced that the world championships were going to be held on Garburator wave on the Ottawa, interest in making the team sky rocketed compared to previous years! Several people started booking flights home from various corners of the world, and people who havn't been seen at a freestyle competition in years suddenly became interested again! Tom Dunphy and Colin Wong started talking about coming home from Canada and Uganda for the competition, and the Kellehers, Brian Cahill and a few more were also up for it. On top of that, lots of the younger generation, including myself, started booking trips to Uganda in order to get some solid wave training done!
Len Kelleher twisting into a Pistol Flip on Gower's left shoulder. Photo by Emer O'Brien.
So in the end, the standard of paddling at Gower at the weekend was a step ahead of anything I've seen at a competition in Ireland before. I spent the last week juggling time between finishing my FYP (...yeah, that's finished now, delighted!!) and paddling Gower, so I went into the competition with a pretty solid ride of cleanspins, blunts and backstabs that I was able to hit consistantly. Unfortunatly, I had never tried hitting all of those moves in 45 seconds, and my first two rides went way over time. When I tried speeding things up for the last two rides of the day things started going better and I started fitting a few more moves in. So I finished the first day of competition sitting in 7th place; not altogether unrespectable considering the standard of competition but still not good enough for a place on the team! After Saturday, Moe Kelleher was sitting in first place, followed by Barry Loughnane, Len Kelleher, Tom Dunphy, Billy Brett and Conor Macken.
Barry has been consistantly throwing huge airscrews on Gower recently! Photo by Diarmuid Moloney.
The next day, it was obvious how much everyone wanted a place on that team! Even compared to Saturday's competition everyone stepped it up a level; airscrews were commonplace, entry moves started to be thrown and there was even the occasional McNasty by the likes of Barry and Len! ...entry moves at Gower are something people start attempting when they get tired of trying other moves and I've seen very few of them stuck before the weekend. Seeing them being landed regularly on Sunday was pretty mindblowing! For my first two rides I went with the same sequence of moves that I had been going for the day before, but I could see that with standard of paddling that was going down it was going to leave me right down at the bottom of the leaderboard. Something had to change for my last two rides!
Blunts have been going well for me at Gower recently, but it was going to take a whole lot more than that to make the team! Photo by Diarmuid Moloney.
My plan all along was to start each ride with the moves that I can hit consistantly, and work my way up the scoresheet towards the more difficult moves that are more likely to result in a flush. This obviously wasn't doing the job so I changed tactic; an 'all or nothing' approach was needed so I started my last two runs with helixes and airscrews before going into the blunts that I had been doing for the rest of my rides. It turns out that I should have gone with this tactic all along; I landed the airscrews and helixes and at the end of the day I finished in joint first with Len Kelleher! Combined with the previous days results this left me sitting in fourth overall, and that gives me a place on the team along with Len Kelleher, Moe Kelleher, Tom Dunphy and Barry Loughnane! Really surprised at this result, especially after Saturday, but I'm delighted with it! I've been aiming to make the senior freestyle team since the day I turned 18!
Going for a Pan-Am in one of my earlier rides. These need a bit more work before they're ready for competition! Photo by Diarmuid Moloney.
The full results from the weekend have been published here: Team Trials Results. Congratulations to the others who made the team, and commiserations to everyone else. I wasn't expecting to make the freestyle team so I have already committed to going to the surf kayak world championships in July. So now I'm in the great position of having to figure out logistics, gear and cash for two world championships over the summer! ...pity kayaking isn't one of those sports where there's funding available for this kind of stuff! I'm really looking forward to the summer now, and training for both competitions. I'll post progress here for anyone whose interested, and I've a few ideas for fundraising floating around the back of my head so keep an eye out! Better get cracking!
All of the girls, happy out after they're weekend on Gower. Congrats to Sinead O'Donnell, Aisling Griffin and Aisling French for making the team! Photo by Emer O'Brien.
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