Alberta Slalom Canoe Kayak: 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.