Freestyle Kayaking by Bartosz Czauderna. Kayaking, traveling, lifestyle. Living the life! : Graz rodeo, Wildalpen and Lienz!

After some rest in obverfellach we went for the Graz rodeo on friday which was at the weekend of 2-3.06.12. It’s one of the biggest competitions in this part of europe. We arrived in the early afternoon and went paddling for the wave under radetzkybrucke – not like last year when the competition took place at the upper playspot. The water level wasnt the same as at our last visit few days before – there was less water going and the wave was more like a big hole but it gave you opportunity to fly super high! When we came on the wave there were already alot of people training - local Austrians and our friends from Slovakia, Czech and Poland later on Germans joined us aswell. After some training rides there was a time for a great grill party – which this competition are pretty famous from. Loads of good meat, great salads and drinks with alot of awesome people gave us some good time there! After this we went for sleep to arranged sleeping place near spot – the kindergarten. Was quite fun to sleep there. At Saturday there were the competitions going so we had to wake up quite early.

What’s typical for Graz rodeo – it takes place at one day so there were alot of fun planned. As i was also a judge i didnt go for the C1 as it would give me totaly without any break and counting the prelims, semi and finals was already 7 rides. It was really nice that we had some food and drinks going and you could watch the rodeo all the time. What was quite surprising – there were no junior category neither in mens nor womens so they were just added to normal categories. In mens there were alot of good paddlers so it was really exciting. I had really fun accident – at my second ride which was going really well as i got some really huge moves there – i noticed that the time wasnt going on – actually everything went off as the power went down. But i got very fair proposition that as i wasnt there full 45 seconds i can repeat my ride but as it was really good – if i dont beat it the score from stopped one will be counted. But as i had two good rides already and seen other rides, i counted that it will be enough to get into 10 people getting into semifinals. After qualifications Peter Csonka was leading and i was second followed by Tomasz Czaplicki, Honza Spindler and Tomo Andrassy. Unfortunetly our mate from pirate-production – Ondra didnt make it to semifinals. Semifinals were pretty nice entertaiment and turned out to be tottaly owned by Vajda Beast riders! So to final 5 Marcel Bloder switch with Tomasz. The hole was really strong and before the finals we were really tired. In the meantime there were the womens and really great job did Lucie Horka after qualificating to the finals with her huge aerial loop and then performing really good ride with some looping and cartwheels going on which finaly gave her 3rd place. Winner was Nina Csonkova and second was Eva from Slovakia. Our finals turned were really tight and till we got the scores nobody knew how the places will be splitted. On the end the winner was Tomo Andrassy followed by Peter who had the same amount of points as me but better second ride – so i came third. 4th was Marcel and later Honza. But everybody performer really good rides there, it was so good fun to paddle with mate from Vajda team!

After party in the evening we went with Csonkas, Ondra , Hanka and Tomas to Lienz, where the water level still didnt work really well so we didnt have too much paddling going but when the water rised to proper level we had really nice session together. Unfortunetly at Wednesday we had to split again – Ondra, Hanka and Tomas went home and Honza with me jumped out in Wildalpen as i’ve had the coaching for kajak club from Graz.

It was so good to get to wildalpen together again. We had so good memories after last year and were really happy to be here once more, meeting people from liquid-lifestyle and staying at Naturfreunde camping. There was quite big water level at Salza and the hole was quite flushy, but with this great weather we had alot of fun anyway! Was nice surprise for me to meet some people from Poland there! Was nice to meet people people from Bydgoszcz and Szczecin! Alex from graz joined us already at Thursday so we had some nice sessions together and at Friday evening rest of crew joined us – Manuel and two Chrises. After nice session Honza had to go home to prepare for exams so i stayed with Austrians from now. On saturday morning our last member of the crew joined – Paula, it was really nice weekend with alot of fun and hard practicing. Unfortunetly it was cold and rainy but our good moods dealt with it without a problems. We had video analyses linked with barbecue and some chilling. It was really good fun to paddle with this guys and see their spirit for the paddling, it was pleasure to look at them learning new things ! After a good weekend i will hit the Lienz again and keep preparing there for europeans!

Stay in tune!