Well it has been a busy few days.
Tuesday night we had the opening ceremony. I always feel sorry for organizers of events trying to get paddlers organized for a opening ceremony march. Teams are usually late, then whilst we should be all standing in a line in our countries ready to go we are all mingling chatting and catching up with people that we haven't had a chance to talk to yet. The march was probably the most underwealmingly attended opening ceremony march at a world championships, which was the total opposite of what I was expecting given France and bourge really is the home of wild water racing, and my memories of the last world champs opening ceremony in trenjac in 2000.
The opening ceremony was the usual mix of interpretive dance that feels like it will never end and speeches in French and English from various official kinds of people. The most impressive of which was probably icf vice president Richard fox( who is also Australian canoeings high performance manager) who spoke off the cuff for most of his speech in English then in French.
Wednesday was classic race day, I ended up finishing 28th. I must admit that I wasn't particularly happy with my race, For what ever reason I didn't feel that I went as fast as I should, possibly I tried to force it too much, I'm not sure. However my lines were pretty good and I didn't make too many mistakes.
Yesterday we had the teams classic race. In a teams ace 3 paddlers paddle down the course together and attempt to assist each other in going as fast as possible. A real advantage can be gained by paddling closely together, from both wash riding and the lead persons boat opening a path through the waves for the people following. Our team was stew Matt and myself. The race went ok we paddled less than half a second slower than my individual time. Unfortunately I felt like I was strong, much better than the individual race and was holding back as Matt was getting blown back of the wash. We needed up finishing 7th in the teams, which is our worst teams result since 04, however as the paddling nears Ben Maynard pointed out the European depth has increased in the last couple of years, and we weren't helped by the defection of two Germans to the Dutch team. For us to have gone one place better we pull have had to all improve our individual times by 5-10 seconds and the same again to get one place more. All off the top men's k1 teams finished within 3 seconds of one another, which made for a very exciting finish. I Am sure each team can pinpoint a small mistake that could have lost them the race, unfortunately that is ww racing.
I also debuted in my first ever c2 race yesterday, well if I am hint hada my first ever c2 paddle. For something to be a class at world championships, 6 boats have to start and there we only 5 teams entered in the c2 teams race, we were volunteered to start this so that it could be a class. I was kind of entertaining to show up and haven Czech and German people handing us boats and paddles to use. We started and paddled our of the start gate into the eddy immediately below the start platform. I am not sure I could be a c2 paddler, after 10 minutes in the boats my quads and knees were killing me Audi was limping around for a good hour afterwards.
I cranked out a few rapid sprints in the Arvo, I feel liked have the top part of the sprint course sorted, I couldn't get the corner cut at the end yesterday but I felt like that was just because I was tired from the classic races and couldn't do the gear change acceleration as I hit the flat to drive it across the flat. I feel like I can do well in the spring, I am not sure the 15 boat final is possible, but if I have two good runs anything can happen.
Today is a rest day, I feel confidant on the sprint course so I am going to take this opportunity to rest, also the river is at final level which is 10 comes higher than the qualifying level. This level is easy and I figure if I make the final I will just sort it on the day.
We have the rapid sprint qualifying tomorrow ( Saturday) and the final an rapid sprint teams Sunday. I am not sure if we are doing c2 teams in the spring or not....
