200m Finals wrap up the weekend

The last afternoon of racing was the 200m finals. Greg and Stu had a 'shoot off' for SA s top K1 200m, as were both in the C final together. The wind had just picked up and Greg pipped Stu to be our first K1 over the line.

In the womens K1 Jen had an intense race and came in 6th, 0.468 behind the winner of the B final. 

Bridge had a photo finish for her C final and narrowly came in third.

The K2 mens had another SA shoot off with Shaun and Mike racing Greg and Ryan Louw in the B final. Mike and Shaun finished 0.33 seconds ahead of second place. Their time was faster than the A final s first place, however both races had a head wind so unfortunately the times are not comparable.... 

Greg and Ryan came in 6th a second behind them. 

Well done to all the athletes for an intense 3 days of racing. We had 9 B finals and 3 A finals. This is amazingly promising for the future of SA sprinting. 

Please browse the other blogs, linked on the right, for more analytical reviews of the racing.

I hope we have brought home a taste of international sprinting and that you've enjoyed the experience with us.

500m finals

There were 2 A finals in the 500m for South Africa. Bridge having raced all three disciplines, was up against a difficult field. She had one of her best starts and was still able to hold onto a strong finish coming in 5th, above.

The K2 of Shaun and Mike had a different game plan. Being 200m specialists, they decided on racing a 400m race plan. They dominated the race up until the final 150m and came in 7th, one position better than at Vichy.

Cam and Stu raced the K2 B final and had an awesome 4th. Nick was in the K1 B final and had an incredible race! From the start blocks he was in the lead and powered his way to a win.

The ladies boat of Jen and Tiff had done so well to get a spot in the B final for the K2 women's, and finished 5th.

5000m sprint finish

28 boats make a sprint for the front bunch at the start of the men's long distance race yesterday afternoon.

Len fights for a spot in the front bunch... and gets squeezed out.

The front bunch of Adam van Koeverden, Ken Wallace, World marathon champ Ben Brown and Len.

 In the third lap Len and Adam have made a break away.

It comes down to a sprint finish...

Adam's boat crosses the line centimeters ahead of Len.

Well done Len!

Silver for Bridge

In the K1 womens 1000m A final Bridge claims second. 

At the 250 and 500 she was holding strong with the 4 front boats and in the last 250 pulls out to finish in an impressive second place.

This excitement was joined by a brilliant race by Zoli's men's K4. In their B final where they were first out the blocks and led the race through to the 750 mark. They held it well and crossed the line in third, an impressive threat to other top crews.

200s

This morning started with a 30 minute delay due to the weather which gave time for the nerves to build... The 200m distance this year has had a massive turn out with five heats (of 9 boats each) for the mens and women’s K1 and mens' K2 events.   

Greg and Stu raced hard in the K1 heats making it through to semis and will race together in the C final tomorrow afternoon. This was followed by the K2s. Mike and Shaun were excited for the challenge of racing again at a venue that they won silver at last year, but today they didn’t manage the brilliant start that is typical of their racing. They came 4^th in their semi and will be racing the B final tomorrow along with team mates Greg and Ryan Louw. The brothers won their heat and came 3^rd in their semi final.

Jen narrowly missed the A final for the womens K1 which is basically raw talent as has been sick this week and only 3 months into sprint training after an extended break following Beijing. 

Calvin had an impressive PB today in C1 200m and is also newly back into training after Beijing, and is still training under Hungarian Legend Nandor Almasi.

To appreciate how fast these guys are going over 200m, see the detailed results on http://results.mkksz.hu/en/timetable/ 

Interesting start to Day 2

Greg's boat waiting for him on the side of the course this morning. With all the thunder and lightening, there might be a delay to the start of the day. No one's on the water yet and there s only an hour until the first race.

5 Hundreds and Thousands

After the 500m heats our 7 semis were raced within 75 minutes of each other! This is why I think that supporting these races is more tiring than being in the boat...

After the hard day of racing we have the following events to look forward to over tomorrow and Sunday:
Bridgitte: K1 1000m A final, K1 500m A final.

Calvin: C1 1000m B final

Jen and Tiff: K2 500m B final

Nick: K1 1000m B final, K1 500m B final

Len: K1 1000m B final

Shaun and Mike: K2 500m A final

Cam and Stu: K2 500m B final

Chrisjan, PW, Fouche and Gavin: K4 1000m B final

That is an amazing effort!!!!

Special mention must go to Jen and Tiff who have maybe had three training sessions in the K2 together before they lined up in the starting blocks. They only narrowly missed the A final in their K2 500m semi going through comfortably to the B final.

But before we tackle the list above we must do 200m heats and semis which are schelduled for tomorrow morning.

The end of the day tomorrow will be the long distance K1 5000m race. Where Fish legend Len and Cape paddler Gavin are racing in the mens and fellow Cape paller Lindi and Tiff are racing the womens.
 

Bridge dominating her 1000m heat.

Calvin, 500m heat.

Nick in 1000m heat.

PW doing SA proud!

Tiff and Jen in the white boat and wearing green.

World Cup II, Beginning of Day 1.

Last night it stormed, I could hear things being blown over in the street below.... 

When the ladies from the K4 took the bus at 6 am this morning, it was pouring. Some how the weather cleared and it's turned out to be a brilliantly warm ‘still ish’ day. The course here often has a side wind making the far lanes a little choppier and keeping lane 9 quieter.... Lucky lane 9. I am sure this will come into play at somestage over the weekend but haven't seen it yet.

Bridge pulled her ‘usual stunt’ this morning and won her heat taking her straight through to the finals for K1 1000m. She makes it look so easy, and had a brilliant, well paced race.  Both Len and Nick also paddled well in their heats to come 5th  and 4th  respectively in their semi finals, putting them both in the K1 1000m B final tomorrow. Looking at their times, Nick would have been placed in the A final had he been in a different semi. His semi was particularly loaded with the likes of British Olympic 1000m champion, Tim Bradants, Olympic 500m Champion Ken Wallace from Aus and double silver world champs medallist last year,  Anders Gustafsson... to name a few. 

The mens K4 has had a potent transformation since Vichy, and are much more competitive and are through to the B final tomorrow. While the girls K4 felt great on the water and learnt a lot from the race where they placed 9^th and are motivated for more.

Watch this space for this afternoons activities and down loaded pics.

The night before...

It s difficult to describe what it was like down at the course today. I think it s one of the best times of a regatta. The hard work has been done, so although everyone is focused, they are also happy to see each other again and socialize a bit. The excitement is contagious and the unknown of what might lie ahead, humbling.

We had good weather today with temps around 30 deg and a slight head wind. The word going around is that there's a cold front on it s way...

Race line up for tomorrow is 1000m heats and semifinals before lunch with 500m heats and semis in the afternoon.

1000m boats:
Calvin C1
Nick Stubbs K1
Len Jenkins K1
Cam Schoeman + Stu Waterworth in K2
Chrisjan Coetzee + Peiter Willem Basson + Fouche van Tonder + Gavin White K4

500m boats:
Bridgitte Hartely K1
Jeniffer Hodson + Tiffany Kruger K2
Esti van Tonder + Rochelle van Coller K2
Tiffany Kruger + Esti van Tonder + Rochelle van Coller + Lindi Harmsen K4
Calvin Mokoto C1
Nick Stubbs K1
Len Jenkins K1
Shaun Rubenstein + Mike Arthur K2
Cam Schoeman + Stu Waterworth K2

Szeged is one of THE BEST sprint courses in the world - what a privilege to be here.
I promise to take lots of photos tomorrow to share the scenes with you.

'Till tomorrow!

Julia

Ladies K4

Our ladies K4 will race the first race tomorrow morning at 8 in the 500m heats.
In front is Tifffany Kruger, with Esti van Tonder, Rochelle van Coller and Lindi Harsmen powering behind her.     Good luck Girls!

Flying high!!!

A banner strung between two buildings in the centre of town advertising this weekends racing.

View the racing schedule and results on
http://www.kajakkenusport.hu/worldcup2010/en/content/47

Szeged racing overview

The second ICF CanoeKayak world cup to be hosted in Szeged, starts on Friday morning and will last until Sunday afternoon. The venue has a 2,400-metre long, 122-metre wide course,  and is a popular racing venue as there always promises to be many festive supporters. 

Thanks to the big changes in sprint kayaking in South Africa, with the award of the Lotto support, we have a big team with boats entered for most events. Including a men's and a women's K4, six men's K2, two women's K2, eight men's K1, seven women's K1 and three men's C1 event s entered. Wow, what a mouthful! 

Friday will see the heats and semis for the 500m and 1000m events, followed by the 200m heats and semis, and 1000m finals on Saturday. The final day will have the 500m and 200m finals and finnish off with the 5000m straight finals.

We are still in suspense as to which countries will be racing. At the moment it looks as though the competition could be as tough as what we were up against in Vichy at the first world cup. 

The course at night, taken by Mike.

The art and science of sprinting culminates this week.

The last 2 weeks have been a crucial part of the season. A balance between training as hard as possible, pushing and stressing the body beyond what you think is possible. Team boats have been drilled, the gym has been 'maxed' and now we are tappering. We need enough time to recover so as to race at our best with out losing the edge. Complete trust is place in the coaches to attain this fine balance. One session can make all the difference between which side of this line you are on.

Here are two pics from this final phase of training. And there will be lots more to follow.

Recovery....

Cam, Stu, Greg and Adro took a trip to the warm baths in town for an afternoon off....

MOCKE

Here is a few of us in our generously sponsored Mocke kit from The Paddling Centre in Fish Hoek, Cape Town.

A huge congrats to both Nikki and Dawid Mocke for winning the World Cup surfski race this weekend in Durban, and a big up for the kit! We love it!

Introducing the Mens K4!

Stroke: Chrisjan Coetzee

2nd: Pieter Willem Basson

3rd: Fouche van Thonder

Anchor: Gavin White

The combination has been together since March and train under Hungarian Zoltan Bako in Paarl.
Chrisjan is the youngest in the boat at the age of 19. He lives in Paarl and has been training with Zoli since his arrival in South Africa in January 2009. PW has the experience in the boat and has a wife and daughter of 1 year, at home waiting for him on his return. Fouche is based in Pretoria and travels up to the Cape to train with his team mates. Gavin was a former marathon and surfski paddler who has reciently seen the light and moved across to sprints. Check out their blog at http://southafrican-K4.blogspot.com

More PHOTOS!!

View our web albums by clicking on a slide show on the right. You can see the first world cup in Vichy, France as well as other captured moments from the trip in Euro Tour. If you want to brows a little longer once in Picasa Web albums click on My Photos and you will find web albums of last seasons photos from Poland, Hungary and Canada as well as a few pics from SA. Leave us a comment and Enjoy!

Road Trip to get the Girls!

Alex, as our trusted van driver, drove 168km to the airport in Budapest to collect the girls who are racing K4 in 2 weeks.

Alex being a gentleman.
3 out of 4...  Rochelle is hiding

 After 3 1/2 hours... 4 out of 4! But where the bags Tiff? 

Race Reports from the Athletes

Bridge aka GG, won a silver from her formidable performance in the 1000m. Her strength over the longer distance is incredible. She also made A finals for both her other races, with a brilliant 5th in the 500m and a 7th in the 200m. When Hartley's starts balance out her kick at the end, she will be even more of a 500m force. Watch her season!!! 

In the build up to the finals, Mike reflected on his races on his blog; " What a great day, our two races went really well, we won our K2 heat in 1:32 holding aoff a really strong German crew and then managed to secure our A-final spot with a 2nd in the semi with a time of 1:29.2 which is our new fastest time. "

Shaun Ruby's comments from his blog  "My focus has been on speed for the 200m K2 with Mike and its awesome to finally know that the training that we are doing is working and that we are ALMOST as fast as the fastest boat at the moment. While we ended up coming 4th in our 200m A final, we were only 0,3 sec off the French in 1st, 0,2 sec off the Spanish (Olympic champions) in 2nd and 0,016 behind the Danish in 3rd. Our result has given me a lot of confidence going forward, both in our ability as a combination and that our training so far is on track and we are making real progress."

We are so happy to have Jen Hodson, back from a break after the Olympics, she had a great 200m performance and narrowly missed an A final in the 200m. Nick Stubbs also drew some attention in his first international regatta as a K1 force when he placed 2nd in the 500m B final. The Louw brothers also performing at a top level, finished 4th in the tremendously competitive 200m K2 B final. 

International Sprint Racing Season Kicks Off

This years international racing season started with a trip to Vichy France. There was a big group of us selected to go over, some to gain experience and some to challenge the top kayakers in the world.

We arrived in France a week ago, to freezing conditions, literally. It was an especially competitive field of athletes, as everyone was there to test out the venue, as it has been selected as the World Champs course for 2011. Which also makes it the Olympic Qualification venue.

The regatta went very well with a few lessons along the way.....

The course was set on a river that winds it s way through the quaint French town. On the first day there was quite a strong current running down the course resulting in some impressive times. By Saturday and Sunday the rain water had been controlled up stream and the conditions had evened out.

We had a K4 competing together for the first time internationally under the coaching of Zoltan Bako Jnr., Cam and Stu were our K2 1000m boat, the Louw brothers, Greg and Ryan, were the second K2 200m with Shaun and Mike making up the K2 200 first boat. Two of K4 guys, Chrisjan and Fouche, were the K1 200m boats with Nick Stubbs and Len Jenkins in the 1000m and 500m races. In the women we had Golden Girl, Bridgitte Hartley doing all K1 distances and Jen Hudson competing in the K1 500m and 200m races.

All final results are on the race website www.vichycanoe2011.com but we will follow up with some posts on race reports.