Such alot of things happened lately but I had no internet connection so I couldn't write before. Lets start from begining.
Kadan competition were first, alot of good paddlers from all around the world. Competition were organised perfectly! All in schedule with some extra company and party! Those who didn't come should regret alot!
In the Morning Prelims where i came second after Honza Spindler. Also Russian crew which I've been training did really nice job there! It was so nice to see how they improved and did moves in rides which they had just learned! After that it came to semi-finals where I did such a sweet ride which I'm really proud of! Nice entry Mcnasty straight to air phoenix monkey after and after this perfect link tricky woo to clean cartwheel to mc nasty ! It looked awesome! Unfortunatly after semi finals my Russian friends had to leave home becouse of work and long long way to home. After saying good bye to them I joined the party which lasted all night long! Next day was day of the finals with such good paddlers! Czech Champion Honza Spindler, German Champion Martin Koll, Austrian Champion Marcel Bloder and great Czech paddler Jirka Langer. I did really good ride doing almost every trick but unfortunetly not every of them was perfect enough to get scored by judges. Honza Spindler did awesome ride also which got better scored by judges and gave him first place. Anyway It was really huge fun to compete with those guys and i enjoyed it alot! After everything finished i joined German crew this time - Martin Koll, Philip Vorbohle, Thomas Hinkel and Mr Zohan. We left to the plattling. Then i joined the Plattling camp family which is growing with everyday! I was so happy to see Thomas Dunphy, Orky, Sammy, Emilly and James with Katya ! It's soo cool that each day there is new face and new tent with some new stories! So nice to train with all those people!
When we arrived to plattling the water level was best since two months and it was so cool to paddle there! I did all moves which i learned including few huge matrixes and some links like tricky woo to back loop or back loop to mc nasty! Unfortunatly this paradise lasted only for one day. Water dropped super fast and came back to It's "normal level" - around 150cm. Which is actually completly crap. It's super hard to stick anything, getting air is really hard but the worse thing are stones. All the time you are hitting them, tricky woos, wheels, end of jumps and making loop and space godzillas in carbon boat is suicide! I broken my Cowwys nose at thursday and was terrified ! Fortunatly thanks to big help from friends It got repaired just in one day and was ready to hit the Graz! Thanks again for helping me mostly Peter Csonka and Vladimir Cako but also all who helped me with scratching and things like Thomas and others! Thanks! So in the evening we had cool football match as other form of training! That was really nice match!
At thursday evening our friend Hannes arrived and in team consisting of Martin Koll, Thomas Dunphy, Hannes, Orky and me we left to Graz. We found nice sleeping place at 6 feet wide grass zone near parking at the bank of river mur. The hole looked similiar to Kadan so i was happy at begining that it could really be good working for me ! But at trainings it didn't look so. It was really retentive and hooking you down. So i spent alot of time training becouse was a bit upset that i couldn't do too much moves. But it was nice to see Martin flying in his boat there! He was really doing great! The hole was near center of graz so alot of people were watching, also just at bank there was beach party so we had some nice audience watching! But the best thing was how the competition were organised. For just 15 euro entry fee we've had alot of treats! On friday and saturday evening big barbecue and at competition day alot of snacks and food so no one was hungry which made our crew very happy! Actually there was one thing which wasn't that good organised becouse there was supposed to be sleeping room that everybody knew about. But everybody were coming there in previous years and me and irish guys were first time there so we spent 2.5h at friday night looking for it at the end finishing at our grass zone. Despite of this it was really good! Whole competition took one day! And there was nearly every paddler from east and central europe! All champions and best guys in one place, really huge crew! After prelims Martin came 3rd and I 5th. Thomas was so close to semi loosing only 30 points and finishing at 11th place. Orky qualified to c1 finals also! At semi finals time water level dropped badly and hole became really dangerous. I nearly drowned catching 3 breathes of water! Similar happened to other guys! After semi finals i was pretty sure that i will not qualify to next round but I finished at 5th place and Martin came 4th ! There was also Seppi Strohmeier, Thomas Andrassy and Honza Spindler! That was really hard even more becouse water kept dropping. I had same situation as in semifinals at my first ride and was feeling really sick.. but the hole was really hard to everybody. At my third ride i did nice air phoenix monnkey, air loop, tricky woo and split wheel so i was counting for box. When it came to ceremony i was so surprised with the scores! Marting ended up at 5th places, Honza whos ride looked really good was 4th then Seppi who was favorite for everyone came 3rd! When they announced that Tomo is 2nd I was so amazed and happy! This is huge achievment for me! Thanks everybody for competition, it was great!
Results From Kadan
http://cnawr.cz/1085-vysledky-kadan.html
Graz Interview
http://www.kleinezeitung.at/allgemein/video/multimedia.do?action=showEntry_VideoDetail&id=153397&project=462
And Results from Graz
http://www.kajakgraz.com/willkommen/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=86:results-graz-2011&catid=37:freestyle-wettkampf
Here is video made by Philip! Cool one!
http://freecaster.tv/kayak/1016000/graz-rodeo
Thanks for reading,
Bartosz!
