Red Deer River/Alberta Cup #2 Canceled.

The Red Deer River Camp and Alberta Cup #2 on the Upper Red Deer are canceled. Connor will be coaching at the Kananaskis Saturday and Sunday, and if there is interest he can be available Friday. Please contact him at kayakercon(at)yahoo.ca of 403-282-3374

Vir - Praha - Roudnice

This morning is the C1 and K1W qualifications for Junior Worlds in Roudnice. We will be headed up shortly to cheer on Marrissa and the rest of the Canadian contingent.

We've been in Prague all week training hard now that our races are over. We concluded a hard week of training with the best paddling of the trip in Full lengths yesterday. Matt and Haley stole the show. We've done a couple days of the tourist thing in Prague, and raced some ridiculously fast GoKarts. Prague is just such a good place to train, and no one has been sick!!!!

Last weekend we did a Czech race in Vir, just north of Brno, two hours east of Prague. It was a great little site with clear water, ferns, valleys, big trees, and lots of kids. There were 200 competitors for this limited attendance junior race! Pretty cool.


Graham was the best Canadian in Vir with a 6th and 9th overall. Haley was forced to paddle Graham's boat after she stuck a big rock through her's on the first day. Matt and Max were hampered on this occasion by touches.

I think the real highlight for the Canadians though was the Palicinky. The club was selling crepes with nuttella and jam, and we completely cleaned them out each day! We also had a little volley soccer tournament at our camping place.


Now it's the Jr National Team's turn to shine in Roudnice. Go Canada!

Training Camp/Alberta Cup #2

Hello Slalom paddlers!

Next week from July 30- August 3 we will have a whitewater training camp and the Alberta Cup #2 at the mighty Upper Red Deer River! This camp will focus on learning to use whitewater. If the level is ok, we will do some work in Slalom boats, but playboats, and especially longer, faster river running boats will work well too.
At this time of year the Red Deer should have enough water to be fun and playful, but not over-challenging or intimidating. Whatever the level I will MAKE it challenging!

The camp will then end by setting up a small race course and racing the Alberta Cup #2. Location will be determined soon but it will either be S-Bend or Double ledge. I like the idea of a super slalom using single poles and the waves at S-bend to make a challenging and interesting event.

Stay tuned for more updates!
-Connor

Gunzbug - Praha

We have made it to Prague after a wet exit from the Gunsburg race. While the first day didn't quite go as well as had liked, the team did pick up a trophy for their Team exploits. Haley placed second both days, and Matt and Max each picked up a third place trophy on the second day. Not a bad haul for the weekend.

The race was small for Germany, only 130 competitors. The course got increasingly difficult, helped along by two days of solid rain. By the end of the second day, when the littlest kids had to paddle, the river was swollen, so the eddies were disappearing, the bottom hole was eating kids right and left, and the mud had creeped up past our knees.

We made it to Prague last night and got to eat breakfast with the other Canadian Juniors this morning. They are headed off to Roudenice today for their final preparations for the Worlds. Good luck to them all! We will remain in Prague till Friday, training and sight seeing, before we go to Brno this weekend for a race. We'll keep you updated with our adventures.

Tight weave

Medal winning form day 1 - 3rd Team, Haley 2nd (both days), Matt 3rd, Max 3rd

Czech - Land of the big Eagle

Junior Olympics Wrap-up

Well, a great time was had by Courtney, Levi, and Jesse here in Wausau, Wisconsin at the 2008 Junior Olympics. Jesse and Courtney both took second overall in the combined Wildwater Sprint / Wildwater Classic events and Courtney also came 3rd overall in today's Slalom. Jesse also joined forces with Gryff Griffin from Durango, Colorado, and me, to destroy the competition in the team race! We kept our form and were able to hold a tight weave all the way down the course, so I was pretty impressed with the boys.

Besides the competitions, I was most impressed with the paddlers' progression here on this big course. Wausau is bigger and faster whitewater then almost all the slalom sites in Canada and definitely more technical, so it was a big step up for these guys. Levi and Courtney, at first tentative, were surfing across holes and taking gnarly lines down the drop by the end of the week. While Courtney and Levi both swam, they also did a lot of rolls and are very close to having solid river rolls. Jesse toned down his frantic style and was really make the boat move smoothly and efficiently. All three paddlers were also getting very good at keeping their boats running to the exit in the upstreams, and being more precise through the offsets in the fast current. Their overall confidence constantly increased over the week. Overall, I was very impressed with these guys and very proud of thier progress! On top of that they were a real pleasure to work with all week, on and off the water.

And a note for WSAA-- let's host the Junior Olympics next year at the Kan!! All the kids here who got to go 2 years ago couldn't stop raving about it and really, really want to come back! How about the weekend before the Pan-Ams?

Augsburg-Gunzburg

The Gang!

Keep those rims clean.

The fence in Dachau...

Well it's not much of a journey, about 60km from Augsburg. We would have stayed in Augsburg and commuted for the weekend of races but the BLZ was full this weekend. We found the course the classic way. Drive, find water, follow it up and down to find gates.

Hello...water...anyone?

The Club here is actually pretty sweet. In typical German fashion they have a big clubhouse, nice green lawns, flatwater gates and a small ww course. We're hoping for some rain to augment the water, but none the less there should be about 120 paddlers this weekend.

Junior Olympics

Hello All,

We (Connor, Courtney Groneveld, Levi Severtson, Jesse Gillies) arrived this past weekend in Wisconsin, America's Dairyland! The drive was VERY uneventful, as always crossing Saskatchewan and North Dakota! Now we are in Wausau, Wisconsin, full swing into the Junior Olympics! The site is awesome, the weather is perfect, and Laurie and Tom Ollhoff are the best people in Wisconsin for letting us crash at their house!!!

We started the trip in Steven's Point, about 30 minutes south of Wausau. Here there was a race on the mighty Plover River. This was a great warm up race as it was just slow moving water with a few waves and some good eddies-- perfect for learning some basic whitewater moves. The Alberta kids held up well against some strong American competition with Courtney beating out all the girls to take first, Jesse powering his way to 3rd behind some very quick American junior boys, and Levi just missing the podium coming in 4th in the cadet class. The young Americans are pretty impressive with some really talented 13, 14, and 15 year old kids, so it was a strong showing from our Albertans!

Now we are at mighty Wausau-- quite a step up from the slow moving Plover. Wausau is a world famous whitewater course that has hosted World Cups, Junior World Championships, and many big international events like Champion Series races and Pan-American Championships. It will host the 2012 Junior World Championships. So basically it is the big time! And a big time eye-opener for Levi and Courtney. But they are real troopers and despite a couple of swims they are paddling very well after just 2 days here. Today Levi nailed two river rolls. Courtney said, "My heart stops every time I approach the big drop in the middle!" and then proceed it to do it better then almost everyone out there in the sprint race yesterday! Jesse is like a fish in water and is really showing some top moves. I often catch the American paddler's parents watching on shore asking, "Who is THAT guy!?"

Check out the pictures! Yesterday was a Super Sprint Slalom-- 13 gates. Our guys lost some time in a very tricky gate 10 (coach Connor blew by it on his first attempt when he tried it after the race!) but other then that showed some excellent stuff. Jesse's second run was excellent and was very competitive with the top guys. I also made the kids run the dam spillway where the water enters the course. I remembered it being pretty strait forward, but maybe they changed it, because it was pretty gnarly! I ran it today for a picture to give readers an idea-- not that you can tell! Now we will have the rest of the week training and then Saturday and Sunday will be the Junior Olympic races. I'll try to keep you updated.

Jesse catching air off the big hole at the top. This sucker ATE some kids yesterday and today!
Courtney stopping her heart on the middle drop!
Levi taking it to the next level!
Where is Waldo-- kayaking edition!

Augsburg, Germany - World Cup Weekend

Here we are in beautiful Augsburg. Not quite the birth place of slalom but certainly the epicenter f0r the sport for the last 45 years.

This weekend was the final World Cup race for the season. Team Alberta rocked in Friday just in time for the semi and final races. We were looking forward to seeing our Canadians rip it up, and especially Alberta's Jessica Groeneveld and Ben Hayward.

Unfortunately we were disappointed because we didn't get to see Ben race. A major penalty on Friday meant that he didn't qualify, and we didn't get to see his hair raising still rip down the course. He'll have another kick at the can next weekend in Spain.

Jessica did well and qualified 30th. Looking for more she had quite the entourage chasing her down the course. Maybe the extra attention was distracting as she picked up 10 seconds in penalties and pushed her back to 35th place. I have no doubt that she will clean up her race in Spain next weekend.

For our part Haley, Bryce, Matt, Graham and Max all trained well over the weekend. Sessions on the back forest gates, the kinder kanal, and the main channel have all been successful. The most epic session was off the course, when we did a run from the Hotel ending at the course. Then we jumped in the canal, clothed, and swam about 2km back to the hotel. It was well scary going under low buildings and bridges but by far the craziest was the European Beaver we encountered. No one seems to know they even exist, but wikipedia tells me that they were near extinction but have now been re-introduced across Europe and especially this region. I'm not sure I'll swim in the channel anymore now that I know they are around. It was huge!

We have now settled in to the BLZ for some serious training. Combined sessions with the Aussie and Kiwi Juniors should prove to be good for all. We plan to race in Gunzburg this weekend.