Last weekend saw the Curragower round of the national freestyle championship. Its great having a competition on my back door for a change intead of having to travel the length of the country for it! We even got good weather for the day, with warmth and sun being a change from some of the other recent comps! Between that, and the release that the ESB provided giving us a brilliant wave for the day I dont see why so many people disagree with me when I say that we should hold more comps at Gower! Mabey its too different to sluice for some people?!
The competition went better than usual for me too. Even though I didnt manage to paddle as well as I am able to, as always, what I did was enough to put me in fourth, behind Bowsie, Conor Bredin and Dave O'Sullivan. Since its only my second competition since I moved up to seniors I'm happy out with it! After the main comp was finished they held a biggest-trick competition. The rules were simple, drop in only, and whoever got the most air took the bragging rights. On my first run I think I got the biggest air blunt that I've ever landed on Gower, and that put me in the lead right up untill the final round, where Conor landed a massive clean air blunt, and Dave pulled off a blunt to pistol flip combo, knocking me into third. Sickened!
Bowsie
Mick mid-airscrew
Tom O'D mid airscrew
Vids by Jessica Lyddy and Conor Macken, pics from Dave P.
Looking back at the pics, those new Project X's look like there going huge! ...I need money, anyone feel like giving me a job over the summer?!
This weekend I think most of the paddlers in the country headed up to Wicklow for the 'Wacko on the Jacko' boatercross. Everyone had to be up in Laragh for half nine on Saturday morning which meant leaving Limerick at stupid O'Clock, half 5!! We got to the car park at lyhnams and found dog low water levels but warm weather and lots of banter going around.
This was my first event competing in the seniors. I decided to be ambitious and enter the expert class so the standard was a huge step up from any of the Junior events! My first race in the individual went well, I was well out in front for most of the race, just getting held up by a rock near the end and dropping back to second. It didnt matter though since the first 2 in each heat went through to the next round. The quarter finals were much more competitive. I got stuck in a battle with Sean Mc Ternan which left us swapping 3rd and 4th for the most of the race and even though I got ahead of him in the end I was left in 3rd and out of the competition.
The Short team race went much better. I was in a team with Neil Slevin and Mickie Brennan and we had a very clean run down it, finishing in third. That night we got a cheap dinner in the pub, the prizes from the days races were given out, and then it was time for the party! It was some craic, especially since we managed a way of not having to buy drinks at the bar, and was a long night! We headed back to the hostel around two, where a few faces became the victims of some permernant marker art!
On sunday we got up and headed up to Trooperstown for the long distance team race. Again we had a clean run down it but Neils Magnum looked like it had an anchor tied to it on the flat water, throwing up a huge bow wave and going pretty much nowhere! Between this and my little incident/ beatdown on Jacksons it wasnt worth even finding out the times for the race afterwards! Oh well, theres always next year, and hopefully we'll be in better shape by then, this leaving cert isn't doing myself and Neils fitness any favours at all!
Team trials are up next weekend. Hopefully I manage to go to them, things are getting awful busy with school at the moment.
I finally managed to get out on a river again on Sunday. I started out on Castleconnel with Limerick Canoe Club in the morning and then myself, John and Francis headed out to the Glens. When we got there it was at .65 and steady, delighted! We had a sweet run down it. No major drama, just lots of clean fast lines with no rocks in the way!
Heres a few pics we got from the run:
Francis coming off one of the slides.
Me and Francis under the bridge
John coming through the 2nd hole under the bridge.
I'm loving the new boat! It goes like a rocket, boofs really well, and if you still manage to screw screw up you know you've got 80 gallons of volume there to help you get back out of trouble! If anyone is over 12 and a half stone or so and is looking for a creek boat I'd really reccommend it!
