I have been incredibly busy over the last few months with having a lot on my plate at home assisting my father with his recovery after being involved with a road traffic collision. I have managed to get over to Nottingham for a couple of days here and there and made some progress with my training and also managed to squeeze a few races into the agenda.
With all things considered I am pleased with my performances in the Canoe Slalom Premier races placing 14th , 21st and 16th in the last three events. The positions themselves were not desirable, but looking more closely I would of been between 4-6 seconds of the pace without penalties and with a lot of fitness work to catch up on, along with some technique adjustments, I feel there is some great potential to be gained.
Without much preparation I headed out to Austria to compete in the Adidas Sickline Extreme Kayaking World Championships. Pyranha Kayaks kindly provided me with their new creek racer The 9R which I was keen to put to the test on some challenging white water. Armed with Battle Oats new recipe high energy protein snacks, two friends and I began our road trip.
The event is held in the beautiful town of Oetz and with racing aside, I was looking forward to a short escape from the madness back home.
It was great to see so many Brits competing this year and the pressure really was on with many of the worlds top competitors in the mix. The river level was quite low making it a little less challenging than previous years meaning it was a battle of the fittest. I nailed the lines on the top section of the qualification course but I just wasn't as fast enough on the flat section which made up most of the run and I finished up just one place out of the finals by 0.1 of a second giving me a ranking of 49th.
I had a super time out there watching the finals which saw Joe Morley, fellow GB Team Slalom Athlete back in 2007 take his second World Championship Title!
After making a short appearance at the Champions Party it was time to set off on the 24hr journey home in time to get straight back into things in UK providing coaching for the AdventureX National Student Rodeo prize winner, Thomas. With a good amount of rain we headed up to the Lake District.
