Russian Newspaper & X-mass

I've made it to Russian newspaper! Thanks to Olga Bokhina for article

Also, as it's x-mass time:

For this x-mass I'd like to wish you all neverending smile, happiness and a lot of time which you can share with your closest people. Stay in good health and enjoy year 2015 with great weather, always good water levels and safe trips!

Winter, newspaper & Uganda Dam

Winter trainings here are full on! Getting all from winter that is possible will make your season kick off better then ever. Right now Im in cycle with 3 pool trainings, 3 gymnastics classes, 1 gym, 1 running and 1 swimming a week. Also everyday i do home workout based on bodyweights. What do you do for winter?  ;)

Recently, i've made it to newspaper aswell!

The article was written by my friend - Szymon Wantulok and photo was taken by Tomasz Lebiedowicz.

Cool to make it to one of the greatest saleability newspaper.

Also i would like to add here text about Isimba Dam, from source: https://wazaonline.com/en/economy/isimba-costly-dam

Despite objections from local residents, environmental groups, and tour operators, the Ugandan government plans to go ahead with the construction of a third hydroelectric dam across the Nile. This Isimba dam will end white-water tourism in the region. But Ugandans might end up also paying for it in other ways…

“Have you heard about the new dam?” asks George, when we zoom down Jinja’s main road. “It’s very bad.”

As a boda-boda driver, George makes most of his money driving tourists back and forth to the various campsites scattered along the Nile. And like many locals, George is afraid he’ll lose most of his income when Isimba is built. The dam’s reservoir will flood most of the Nile’s rapids, shutting down the white-water rafting business that makes the eastern Ugandan city of Jinja famous.

With annual revenue of 1.4 billion dollars, tourism is currently Uganda’s top source of foreign currency – with rafting accounting for a large proportion of that. Last year, over 19,000 tourists visited Jinja and the end of rafting will be a financial blow to the town. The shockwaves are likely to be felt throughout the tourism industry that, directly or indirectly, employs over half a million Ugandans.

Power for development

Nevertheless, the government feels it’s considering the bigger picture. There is a growing demand for energy throughout East Africa and the Nile is one of the few sources that can provide cheap and clean power.

“Why does Uganda develop these dams? Are they for decoration purposes, or are they meant to serve the larger national interest?” asks Matovu Bukenya, spokesperson for the Ministry of Energy. “At some point our power supply was so low that Uganda was barely producing any energy at all. And yet we need power for development purposes. If you were an investor, you’d want a source of energy that is sustainable and affordable.”

The big unknown
White-water enthusiasts aren’t the only people critical of Isimba. Dickens Kamugisha, director of the African Institute for Energy Governance, fears Ugandans might end up paying for the dam in other ways.

“Even government officials are concerned about how the Ugandan and Chinese government are negotiating this project,” says Kamugisha. “With Isimba, they have agreed that a Chinese company is going to construct the dam, and the Chinese government is providing the funds. But we haven’t actually gotten the money. And the terms and conditions of the funding still have to be determined. But the Ugandan government has already agreed and entered into a contract.”

Since the government essentially signed a blank document, Kamugisha fears that, depending on how the details will be worked out, Isimba might actually drive up prices for the ordinary consumer. This has happened before: Bujagali dam, completed in 2012, was supposed to provide 250 megawatt of cheap power. Instead, prices shot up. And, at a cost of 3 million per megawatt, the construction of Bujagali was more than twice as expensive as comparable projects in the region.

Kayakers and spectators at the yearly Nile River Festival

Thomas Kleinveld/Waza

Trouble everywhere
Uganda has a difficult history when it comes to its hydroelectric power. In 2012, two whistle-blowers involved in the construction of Karuma dam, which will be built downstream of Isimba, claimed that the dam did not meet international standards. Moreover, the estimated output was based on the record-high water levels of 1962, while in fact the water-level of Lake Victoria is dropping due to global warming. Later, members of the oversight committee were accused of taking bribes to keep the Chinese companies in the bidding process.

“To make it even worse, the company that got the contract for Isimba is the same company that had gotten the contract for Karuma-dam,” says Kamugisha. “And it had provided very wrong information on the capacity of previous projects it had implemented. So from the start you are dealing with a company you can’t trust.”

The Chinese connection
Bukenya feels that people are reading too much in the Chinese involvement. “It’s a Chinese company: the Chinese are into everything,” he says. “Because people from the West set up conditions that are very hard to fulfil. One of these is financing. The European Union gave us money at a rate of about 5 percent and China said ‘We’ll give you this money at around 3 percent’. Which one would you pick?”

But Kamugisha disagrees. To him, the construction of Isimba signals that Ugandan officials found another, easier source of income. “The government, I think, is tired of Western companies who come here and start going ‘human rights and what not’. The Chinese companies are not interested in those human rights matters. They just want the business,” he says.

But giving the keys to Uganda’s power production to the Chinese could become costly. “You’ll discover that sooner or later, we’ll have a monopoly of Chinese companies that are controlling the economy,” says Kamugisha. “And I don’t think that as a country you’d want that.”

How do you feel about Isimba Dam? Share the text with your friends, spread the word!

REAPER! New boat from Agility Skills!

On the begining of 2014 i've started cooperation with Polish boat manufacture - Agility Skills - this is what turned out from this cooperation! The boat is amazing!

We've added extra volume to back and nose, made it a little bit wider, rounded up tail and moved the hull and knees higher but made edges slicer! Thanks to this we've got amazing boat, very responding and solid to control with very easy aerial potential!

http://youtu.be/gE44EcevHD8

Check out new boat from Agility Skills!

The Reaper!

Polish Championships in Cracow!

Hua, So it's been a while again and alot of staff has happened. After Europeans i've head back to Cracow as i had few exams at university to fix but also the very important event for me was upcoming in big steps – Polish Champs. Those Championships were very special for me as we finally managed to get them to Cracow for the first time but i had to look up on everything and it turned out to be alot of work there especially as we still werent sure about water levels of the Wisla river and how it affects current bottom hole.

Luckly just after getting back we agreed to work on the hole and to introduce the plan i've been thinking through all summer – based on Millau feature we made the changes at top part of the channel making blockade from obstacles and with few bottom obstacles we formed in few tries amazing playhole! This was big relief for me as i was quite worried for the previous trasher we had , anyway everything turned out well and we've awesome regular hole with two nice shoulders which is deep for carbon boats for all the moves, you can go huge in air and clean on moves. Also last time the event got moved becouse of most of the channel got flooded, now thanks to positioning hole at the top of the channel we've lowered the risc of that possibility!

I've been quite busy and had only few opportunities to train but it was lifting the heart when i've seen more and more people coming to test out new playhole and have fun there together! Althought it gave us less rides – it was so cool to meet up with 15 people in the eddy at casual tuesday evening and see how everybody's enjoying new playground. Also becouse of those changes whole course got different – water goes now faster and twirls more which is making it even more fun and inspired me for nice track for kayak cross.

Event took place on 13-14th of September we've had an amazing amount of participants registred - 37! I dont remember an event in Poland that had so many participants, great succes we had also in kayak cross where 44 people registred! It's showing great potential of Cracow for kayak development in this area especially as we were honoured with numerous public coming along and enjoying the show. We had alot of TV and radio stations coming, one of the reports you can watch here from 8th min:

http://www.tvp.pl/tvp-regionalna/programy/rusz-sie-czlowieku/wideo/20092014/16923103?fb_action_ids=1537454526483750&fb_action_types=og.likes

We had 4 categories running: K1M, K1K, K1J and for the first time in Poland – Old Bastards. The last one was fun category based on youngsters rules to encourage people that quit freestyle competing scene already to come back and have fun together.

Whole event went very smooth but was very exhausting for me as i've been everywhere from kayaking through doing the speaker job, playing music judging and doing all the staff around but from here i'd like to thanks everybody who gave me a hand running through it and supporting wherever it was possible all in all i've seen people smiling and having fun which was biggest award for me :)

From competitive side it went great for me as i sat on lead from prelims on ahead of my team member from pirate-production.cz – Ondrej Krivanek. So i took gold again, then probably the biggest battle got played for 3rd place between Adam & Michals but Adam left no doubts taking solid bronze. Catching vice Polish champion. Great succes for me was making Junior category happen – as not only Maks Drak & Michal SJ competed but also few other juniors from my club and i had pleasure of seeing all of them at podium steps and enjoying the event. Maks took gold and Michal SJ was 2nd after well planned and performed rides. I was very proud seeing their high performence at the end of the season and i have to say that they were doing very well after only one season of trainings with me! Im looking forward to see them come up at european and world scene in time, remember those names ;) As team we also took

I was very happy everything worked out and on the end i've heard alot of positive comments. Im looking forward for the next events at this wonderful place coming!


After Championships i took some time off for rest and went for holidays. Remember – part of training has to be regeneration and same as you have to know how to train same you must to know how to rest.

Just after i came back from my holidays my friend Stas from Russia came for trainings with group, i had a pleasure to work with them for few days – was great to meet and traing with new paddles. It was big satisfaction for me seeing them progress fast and enjoying our playspot and trainings here, hope to see them again soon!



Now Im heading for almost last event of season – flatwater championships of Mazowsze – looking forward for this technical and fun event to meet up with friends again and then.. time to start off with trainings again! Can't wait!

new bass band

Pirate Production!

Maks going for gold

Chillin between the runs

getting wings

Adam "Dzik" Dziking around

Always look at bright side of life ;)

No idea

Ashaming nearby airport

Part of public ;)

Russian crew trainings

Europeans 2014!

Every other year, paddlers from all over the Europe gather to compete for the title of European Freestyle Champion. This year, the event was held at the well-known kayak course in Danube, Cunovo near the beautiful capital of Slovakia – Bratislava. This is the first time Slovakia have ever hosted such a big Freestyle event, but they’d already had plenty of experience in running similar competitions. The Slovakian championships, which form part of a few big competitions, have been held here over the past few years. The other events include CNAWR (Czech Federation of Freestyle & Whitewater Cup), ARFC (Alpine Rivers Freestyle Cup) and the Euro Cup. The championship was well planned and everything appeared to run very smoothly.

The kayak course itself has 3 channels – a section of flatwater used for warming up, and two main whitewater channels. The left one is mostly used for Slalom competition – the right one is used for freestyle, Rafting and kayak coaching. The flexibility of this course is fantastic, allowing it to host major events in all of these sports. Aside from hosting the Freestyle European Championships, it has played host to the Slovak Open – which was part of ICF World Cups in Slalom and also National Slovak Championships. The organisers did a great job in getting all the events to run on time and without any major hitches. This was all possible thanks to wonderful area around the course – with enough camping for competitors and supporters. For those needing more luxury, there was a hotel just next to the course. The course is only 20 km from the beautiful city of Bratislava where you can find many monuments and beautiful views so apart from competing athletes had a great opportunity to explore the city. 


We arrived on Tuesday – a week before official the training was to start. Unsurprisingly, we weren’t the first! The main wave was already busy for most of the day with paddlers working tirelessly on their routines to ensure they put in a good performance on the day. The main hole looks quite small and irregular but it actually requires a lot of power and dynamic paddle strokes to throw the moves. It was specially designed to make long combo moves possible but the competitors were finding it hard to get huge air off the wave, which needed a lot of strength in order to get the best ride. Cunovo is known for being a very windy place and as it's quite exposed over the Danube River. The weather forecast wasn't looking good for the competition week with a lot of wind and rain. Luckily everyone was so fired up and excited that it didn’t serve to dampen spirits! By the time the official training started on Monday, everyone had arrived. This year we had 131 participants from 15 countries which is almost 1/3 more competitors than at previous Europeans! Even more exciting is the fact is that there have been over 30 junior men which brings hope that the sport will see great things in the next few years with so many youngsters moving up! So on Monday we were split into 9 groups, with each competitor allowed 5 minutes of training. This meant the competitors could adjust their training and everybody had a chance to get equal time in a feature. As well as this, early morning and late evening sessions gave 2 extra hours of open training for those who arrived late. 


On Wednesday evening we had a great opening ceremony with officials welcoming all the athletes to Cunovo as well as a superb performance by a dance group from Slovakia. The event started the next day and the organisers cheered everyone up by delivering some much brighter weather!  The first category starting was K1M where 41 men fought to make their way through to the top 20. The bar was set pretty high and to get into the quarterfinals, 570 points were needed. Next up, in the women’s heats, 14 paddlers were eliminated leaving just 10 girls to battle it out. There were no surprises in either category, all the paddlers who were expected to continue made it to the next rounds. The rest of the day was filled with K1JM, K1JW and C1. It was very long day in hot sun but a great way to start the event!  The next day was probably the most closely fought battle outside the final.

We had K1M quarterfinals with some great performances by the top 20 men in Europe. It was my favourite part of the event; paddlers got 3 rides and the total of the 2 best scores count for their final score. Here, we started to see some surprises with the entire German and Austrian teams both being eliminated– particularly Marcel Bloder who had trained hard. James Weight, previously ranked 5th at the Europeans was also knocked out. 


After this the last prelims of squirt were held and in the afternoon it was time for the semi-finals. In this tough part of the competition 10 paddlers take 2 runs and the best one counts. It's a hard round with competitors battling for 5 places in the final. C1 went smoothly, mainly dominated by Lucas Cervinka, as did the junior women’s event with Nouria Fontane evidently miles ahead of other juniors. In the junior men’s event, Fabien Lanao was knocked out and Honza Havelka got through. In the women’s event, Marlene Devillez and Nina Csonkova were occupying the top spots.  K1M prelims were enjoyable and surprising- probably the biggest surprise was Sebastien Devred not making the final cut after winning the prelims. The most startling part of this round was that Peter Csonka scored 1823 points after his ridiculously good run. This is certainly the biggest score ever in ECA/ICF event.

Saturday was finals day for all classes, with only the best remaining. Despite the fact that weather got quite depressing and a little bit rainy – the crowd didn’t give up and came to watch the finals show. To warm up we had the squirt finals which were held at the end of Slalom course so the squirt boaters could show us their mystery moves. In K1SW Anna Orlova (RUS) won after dominating the rest of girls’ field, 2nd  was young Jennifer McGaley (GBR) and 3rd  Zosia Tuła(POL). In K1SM it was very tight between Alex Edwards, Ben Aldred and Max Karlsson.  In the end Benjamin (GBR) came 3rd  despite his amazing flatwater routine, Max (SWE) took 2nd and Alex (GBR) won with his amazing full head under mystery moves. In K1JW Nouria Fontane Maso (ESP) kept her 1st place title, Kimberlee Aldred (GBR) took 2nd and Emma Shuck (GER) was 3rd after a close fight. In K1JM there was a great show and a huge surprise as Thomas Richard (FRA) – silver medalist from last World Championships got beaten by Honza Havelka (CZE) who took bronze. Silver went to Lane De Meulenaere (BEL) and favourite Max Karlsson (SWE) took gold. After a short break we were back and ready for battle to commence.

In C1 it was a hard fight, as Lucas Cervinka (CZE) really wanted to get his 3rd European Champion title and Sebastien Devred (FRA) wanted to redeem himself after not getting into men’s final. In the end Lucas won gold, Sebastien silver and bronze went to Adria Bosch Roca (ESP).  In the K1W class it was very exciting as after first runs Nina Csonkova (SVK) was sitting in last place with Marlene already taking the lead. It was all to play for in the final run where Nina had a great run, taking 2nd place, while Marlene Devillez (FRA) took gold for the 3rd consecutive time and the bronze medal went to Zofia Tuła (POL) for the first time. Last, but by no means least, the K1M competitors put on a great show. James Bebington (GBR) was the first one to cross 1000 pts and scored 1146,7 in first run putting him in the lead- but not for long! Local paddler and favourite – Peter Csonka put in a great response scoring 1490 and taking the lead. Sitting in 3rd place was Joaquim Fontane (ESP), but after the  2nd round Mathieu Dumoulin(FRA) scored 953,33 putting him in 3rd position. Emotions were running high for the last run, Joaquim went all out and pulled out a score of 1300 pts putting him in 2nd place, pushing Mathieu off the podium and nudging James down to 3rd place! Final scores were put Peter Csonka (SVK) 1st, Joaquim Fontane Maso(ESP) 2nd  and James Bebington (GBR) 3rd. That evening, the closing ceremony and medal presentation ceremony were held near the course.

It was fantastic to take a part in the event and to see how much progress is being made by competitors and the sport as a whole. The best part for me was to see youngsters being inspired by the performances– it was great to see such a large number of juniors competing for the first time. It just proves how much potential and support freestyle has at the moment. I would like to thank everybody who made it happen – the organising team, judges and head judge Peter Hamer who looked after them, Peter Csonka for taking big part in organising the event and especially all paddlers and spectactors for coming and taking a part in such a great event. I’m looking forward to the next one already!

From World Cup to Europeans! Sort, Lyon, Wildalpen, Prague, Cunovo!

Soooo... It was pretty long while since i wrote anything so this one will be long. Also it will contain alot of photos so i hope it will pay back for waiting so long to see anything!

Judges team

View over Sort

The last World Cup had place in Sort. Big demanding hole with wavy and trashy parts besides each other. You could go super huge but you could flash away after making just a single mistake.They werent too huge but were consistent and i felt confident hitting them often which worked good enough to land into K1M prelim in top 10 with two solid rides. In squirt i made it to final round from 4th place. In quarterfinals water level was a little bit different and my rides didnt work out as well as before, i had failed the first one but still had 2 more, 2nd went quite good and i had to repeat it to make it to semifinals. I already got some solid points and had plenty of time and then went for mcnasty but more in pistol flip style and pulled my spray deck off kicking me out of my boat in 15 seconds from end of my ride.. unfortunetly by not lending that mc nasty in the hole i didnt make the next round which was really bad luck there. Finished at 13th place. But still had squirt final to go which i was pretty excited to as i was preparing my ride to contain of as much squirt moves as i could manage. Fight was very tight for 3rd place between me and Tomasz, first i set high score over 500, then he beat me just with few points holding it until last run. Then i hit 600 points after getting my screwing around in my floatboat! Was biggest score i ever get in squirt so i was very happy for it and happily got bronze medal. After everything has finished there were medal ceremonies followed by Spanish style fireworks and closing party. That was great month – hanging out with friends from all over world and pushing the skills to the next level. But there was no time to chill and do as we planned – going for rest for sightseeing to Barcelona as we were monitoring the water levels in Lyon for few days already and it seemed that Hawaii Sur Rhone might be working!

Dinner pan

Bronze medal!

So Just in morning next day we hit the road with Marcel also and went straight to Lyon. We arrived in late evening but we were so excited that we had to try it out. The problem is none of us did paddle there before so we had no idea where exactly should we go. River channels there are huge, but we checked the place that it used to be before finding huge foam pile and decided to give it a try, it turned out to be huge powerful wave with so strong shoulder that neither me nor Marcel could get out of it! The only way out was after failing the trick on shoulder which was hard to even initiate or to ferry all the way through huge foam pile into other side. After few runs we were so tired and scared that we gave it up. But we though to take a look into other channel which is just next to it as we thought we heard some noises there which was pretty strange at it was after 21 already. Luckly we've found local guys paddling on other channel and they said us that you normally paddle left channel but right now the water level was too small for left part where it's best but right part gave us some fun. We took only few runs as we were so tired. We went sleep and in morning Stas and Adam joined us with our car. Also Jordan and Dennis – C1ers from USA arrived there but they had only one C1 and one OC1 so it was pretty sick when they took both of them on the water. Was pretty fun to paddle together! We spend very long time on right shoulder and went for dinner. USA guys left as they had to chase their flight from Munich and we were considering doing same as Marcel got sick but we decided to hit it again as we were already there and it turned out that water had rised in the meantime by ~200 qubics providing perfect levels ~1100-1200! We met there great friend of mine Tim and few more Frenchies that we paddled with before. Was great fun to paddle there together. Surfing at this perfect wave felt so awesome that you could fell in love with kayaking again. We spent 5 hours playing there going huge and taking fun from carving but then it was time for us to go to next place on our trip map – Wildalpen

Air Screw in Lyon feeling proper aerial!

Air Screw or  Pan Am? No difference , feels great!

We arrived to Wildalpen at tuesday afternoon, was big relief to us to get back to our favorite place again. Wonderful weather greated us here at Naturefreunde Camping in the middle of Alps. We happily found out that already some of our friends are here. After warm greeting we started our trainings next day, we found out the water level was very low and after first session in my carbon boat i decided that i need to get another solution to get proper training here. For next session i changed into plastic rockstar and definetly felt more comfortable as i didnt have to worry about boat anymore! On evening, two new members of our crew arrived – two juniors from my club who im training – Maks "Drak" & Michal "SJ" along with their dad who drove them here. He stayed one more day , so we went for short run of Salza river and then he took off back home, unfortunetly along with Stas as he had to go back to Russia.

We were having wonderful time here training and chillin with more and more friends coming to have fun here. The event was happening at Saturday and was pretty pumped with great paddlers from Austria, Slovakia, Czech, Germany, not missing us from Poland of course! Becouse of it's location, great atmosphere and great playspot i think that Wildalpen Freestyle is slowly becoming one of the most favorite playspots and competition on paddlers calendar. I was pretty busy as i was judging all categories, helping to speak and also competing in K1M. On day of competition despite earlier showers, the water got really low so it was pretty hard to get good place for moves avoiding the stones so it was quite demanding to go for big scores, already cut to semi was quite tight as there were so many good paddlers – i was very happy to see Adam making it for first time to semi and Ondra catching top 5 place. I managed to get the lead after this round. Juniors performed also well sitting at 2nd and 4th place while Honza Havelka was on the lead with his sweet tricky woos. In Women Corina dominated the class throwing regular big aerial loops with some solid spins and cartwheel atttempts and as usual for C1 Lukas was on the lead. Semi in K1M went smooth with big crowd cheering for us on the bank, into top 5 made it Honza Spindler, Marcel Bloder, Stepan Vohradsky, Peter Csonka and me. With Peter we got tie on our best run but my second best was better so i was still sitting at leader place. Quite a suprise was for Martin Koll to miss the finals here but he hadnt too much time to practice this year.

Maks at cartwheel

Michal Entry

Getting some air

Crowd cheering for us at Finals

Click here for my final run!

Finals were awesome entertainment, in Women class Corina kept her leader place, in Juniors Honza was out of reach for other juniors but Oliver Hepp local Austrian kid managed to get 2nd place with huge aerial loop. In C1 Lucas dominated his class but surprise was at 3rd place where Andrea Kaspers trying C1 for the first time managed to take 3rd place! Then in K1M there were big emotions, everybody were trying hard, especially Marcel Bloder – only Austrian in Finals was trying his best which put him on the end with high 3rd place. I had very solid first run but for 3rd one i've got so much support from big crowd that i went even bigger getting one of biggest runs of my life and taking first place! 2 nd place went to Peter Csonka.

In the evening after closing ceremony we had great party with everybody having big fun celebrating awesome event!

It was great event, i've had a blast being here and always love to be part of it. I'm already looking forward for next events here which as i predict will be bigger and bigger as everything around here is so wonderful!

After the event we stayed there for full month hanging out with friends, training hard and working. Every day i was getting up, starting to prepare breakfest then mostly Maks was joining me then Adam and Michal was always late so dishwashing was his punishment. Then i was leaving to work while guys were training, going for mountains or just chilling at camping also sometimes going to work with me to see how you teach kayaking. Then afterwork we were having dinner, going for afternoon session, eating supper watching a movie and then going to sleep. In between we were having alot of fun but this was the order we had for most of the time, still even tho it sounds busy we had great fun together.

Irish before Lassing taking FISHES as snack!?

Yum Yum Yum

KusKus vol 1. Just too much.

Night game, rainy but fun!

Alpakaaas!

#selfielongboardbmx

walk with a dog ha?

at top of the mountain!

Lassenberg, probably

Michal, Mike & Maks
M&M&M's?

 Also it was very nice as alot of Polish people visit the camp this year so we were hanging out with others aswell. I had again one of my best b-days there.

#Jaghutte hit of b-day!

b-day gift from Adam! Best Ever!

Bday cake with friends!

 Also one day as we thought that we had enough water to run nearby Lassing river – written for class IV-/III+ but for me it was more like III~, long flat start with getting narrow later but we had quite low water. Anyway if you get water at take out over wooden construction on left river side then it should be good enough. It's good for people with solid roll as it's quite rocky but was good to check it out.

On last day before leaving we went for kummerbricke where we had very high water – 55 on dam + ~10+ coming from power house and some extra from the side stream – we went with few locals that knew it very well and we decided to skip the top 600m part as you had to know the line there as it was huge amount of water pushing you down all the time. So we started a little bit lower but water was so big that we had really good fun at waves there. I was paddling prijon Curve which turned out to be very good boat – huge but very good, nice edge control, very fast easy to buff an go straight and not hard to turn despite it's size. After this there were Helli's b-day and then it was time for us to leave to Freestyle Fest to Prague.

trip to Cunovo from Wildalpen for training session

Prague was as always great event. Was cool to catch up with alot of friends from Czech. Hole was pretty nice this year, tho everyday littlebit different. For it i picked jk rockstar as it was quite big and stip so it gave me more control. I did quite well in prelims but then in semi i slipped into finals from 5th place despite number of tricks i performed. Anyway i didnt feel solid that day as we run kayak cross before and i had alot of paddling before. Also i spent all day with Michal Wrzal – the A team manager outfiting new boat for me. At Sundays morning i went out to test it and it felt very nice, great easy big air and very solid on stern with easy to initiate stern. Did few test runs and got out from the boat with big smile on my face – this will be boats for Europeans.

Michal entry

Space

catching some clean air

New boat!

Afterwards there were finals, both juniors made it to this round, Michal did great entry move and big loop finishing at 4th place, Maks did solid aerial loop with cartwheels and spins taking 3rd place for him. Was very proud for them but had to focus for my runs. Men finals were very tight. From Czech there were Honza Spindler, Stepan Vohradsky and Ondrej Krivanek then Peter Csonka from Slovakia and me. We had pretty equal first runs but then Peter killed it with his 2nd run scoring 1100 poitns with 3 or more trophy moves, i did my best in 3rd run but scored only 790 missing tricks from right side. Overall then came 2nd after Peter but big surprise was 3rd place – where Ondra won Czech champion title for the first time! Big gratz for my pirate-production team member! Just after him was Honza Spindler which put as close together again :) After this we were planning to have a rest day and Maks had to go home so there were supposed to be only 3 of us but then kayak hijacker Jakob Hannule from Belgium asked if it would be possible to join us on way to cunovo. We didnt think that it will be menagable for us but we packed our staff best we could and fit all into the car with 4 boats and squirt FIN on the top! Then we went for cinema in evening and left to Aquapark & wellness next day for rest. Wellness was amazing and we all felt great after it, was deserved rest but now it's time to get focused and get in best condition possible for Europeans! Only 1 week for kick off!

Entry at first training

Jakob lookin for Mcnasty

Woo tricky in!

Home for next 2 weeks

So as i've mentioned before – i got into A team now paddling Agillity boat spin for Europeans and then switching into new boat we prepared together with Michal Wrzal and Agility – Reaper – it's coming! But for now – getting my routine into spin, working and looking good!