http://bailliestottc2.co.uk/ Baillie Stott GB Cane Slalom Team C2 Crew News Feed en-gb Mon, 15 Mar 2010 10:00:07 GMT Mon, 15 Mar 2010 10:00:07 GMT http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Timmy t_baillie@hotmail.com (Tim Baillie) t_baillie@hotmail.com (Tim Baillie) http://bailliestottc2.co.uk/ http://bailliestottc2.co.uk/RSS/rsslogo.jpg 144 25 http://bailliestottc2.co.uk/blog.php?article=153
The weather has turned a bit chilly down here in Aus so I'm slightly regretting my frugal packing strategy. Due to the poor exchange rate and the expectation of hot weather I decided to bring minimal clothes and canoeing gear and replaced the weight in my bag with SIS energy bars and recovery powder to avoid having to buy them down here. I was forced to contemplate the wisdom of this move whilst shivering into my soaking wet shortie cag at 06:45 this morning . To be fair once we had warmed up I wasn't cold during the session because the river water is pretty warm still. Now it looks like the sun might break through the cloud so fingers crossed all will be bright and sunny again soon. Either way no complaints it's still perfectly pleasant for canoeing, just a bit of a contrast from the temperature a few days ago.

Cheers Tim

Photos:


Related Links:
Canoe Slalom News
Science in Sport
]]> Mon, 01 Mar 2010 01:01:01 GMT http://bailliestottc2.co.uk/blog.php?article=153 http://bailliestottc2.co.uk/blog.php?article=152
Before we were given the all clear to travel down here I had to have a final x-ray at the hospital to check that my collarbone was still healing as expected. Happily as you can see on the x-ray image below the bone is mostly filled in now and the stainless steel plate and screws are all still straight. Lots of people have asked if I went beep going through security for the plane and the answer is no so if you would like to smuggle some metal it would appear that screwing it onto you collarbone is an effective but inconvenient option.

Before leaving Nottingham we did two weeks of pretty chilly training building up the intensity and difficulty of the paddling we were doing from totally flat water to paddling the whitewater course but sticking to easy sections and basic courses. In amongst the training we did a few interesting things as well. One cold morning we did a photo-shoot for Science in Sport who are sponsoring the GB team with sports nutrition products (yum yum :)), luckily most of the photos were in the gym, you can see the results below. We were also nominated in the Team of the Year category at the Nottinghamshire County Council Sports Review of 2009. It was a fun event and despite not winning ourselves we were very happy to see the WK1 Team win the team category for being World and European Champions, hard to compete with that. We also attended a sports awards night in Broxbourne which was fun. We attended as guests of honour representing the GB team, it was a good night and our speech at the end wasn't as disastrous as it might have been.

Just before we left we popped into the Peak UK factory in Nottingham. Despite being very busy organising the 2010 kit collection they found time to make us some new tops. We've got some special prototype Wifebeater Topdecks for training in the heat out here. We've worn them nearly every session so far and they're working really well, Thanks very much Pete!

Next up we've got 6 weeks of training here which is going to involve a gradual build up of the intensity, difficulty and volume of paddling we'll be doing. Should be a lot of fun especially as ex-GB team racer Stu Mac works at the stadium here now and is going to be making changes to the course for the next week. We'll be voting for a return to the green pyramid main wave!

That's all for now, Cheers Tim

Photos:


Related Links:
Science in Sport
]]> Wed, 24 Feb 2010 01:01:01 GMT http://bailliestottc2.co.uk/blog.php?article=152 http://bailliestottc2.co.uk/blog.php?article=151
Fingers crossed the Winfield Pool thaws soon so that we can at least paddle on the flat water gates.

Thanks to everyone for their support. Tim

Photos:
]]> Mon, 18 Jan 2010 01:01:01 GMT http://bailliestottc2.co.uk/blog.php?article=151 http://bailliestottc2.co.uk/blog.php?article=150
Up until the 22nd of November our winter training was going really well. We had a good plan sorted and had just enjoyed a quality away day. We broke our crew embargo on Tryweryn because we heard it was running on a mighty 16cumecs which is pretty much double the usual race level. At that level it is a lot of fun and not shallow at all. All of this came to a grinding halt on the 22nd when I broke my right collarbone in a cycling accident. It was quite a bad break and the consultant suggested the best option was to have an operation straight away and get it pinned back together. The GB Canoeing medical team and I all agreed that this was the best idea so two days later I had an operation to attach all the fragments of bone to a meccano style metal plate. The operation went well and the Surgeon did a really good job of clearing up the mess I had made of it.

Since then I've been drinking a very large amount of milk as part of a nutritional strategy to maximise my recovery. For the last two weeks I've also been able to train CV session on exercise bike and turbo trainer. It's going to be quite a long wait to be back to full training but hopefully if things go well we should be back up to speed by the time the season starts. It's frustrating to have missed out on the opportunity to work on specific areas we wanted to improve on but they'll still be on the shelf ready to roll next winter.

In the mean time Etienne has been studying the mystic art of C1 paddling. He's been toughing out some pretty cold mornings here in Nottingham particularly as he's much less stable than we are in C2 but I've heard things are going well overall.

Thanks very much to everyone who has been supporting me and in particular to Ben, Chris 'n' Helen for taking me to Hospital, my housemates Fraser, Kate and Kathryn (I haven't done any washing up since the accident), Katharine Ready our team physio and Darren Forward who bolted my collarbone back together.

Until the next update you can safely assume I'll be pedalling away on a static bicycle somewhere hopefully forging a strong new collarbone, Cheers Tim.

Photos:
]]> Thu, 03 Dec 2009 01:01:01 GMT http://bailliestottc2.co.uk/blog.php?article=150 http://bailliestottc2.co.uk/blog.php?article=149
We did a quick run, I rubbed a gate on my back so a 2second penalty had to be added to our time, but it was enough to win the British Open title and the Premier Division rankings too. We retained the Andy Nicoll memorial Trophy as well as the hefty Streamlyte Trophy. As a bonus we got to go on a spending spree in the Eddylines shop, courtesy of the event sponsor, Whitewater Active.

The race in Llangollen was, as usual, shrouded with uncertainty as to the water levels in the Dee. In the end, the event ran, but on Saturday the river was only just navigable and we only did the one run required to qualify to save damaging our boat. On Sunday, a bit of rain helped matters, but it was still shallow and we were concerned for our equipment. The effort that goes into running this particular event is huge (and hugely appreciated), but the quality of the river and course leave it a bit down the list in terms of popularity with the racers. We'll see what develops next year as there will be a new course in Cardiff bay as well as (hopefully) a rejuvenated Teeside.

The event capped off an excellent year's racing for us; Bronze at the European Championships with a Silver in Teams, 4th at the World Championships with a Bronze in Teams, 4th in the Overall World Cup rankings, UK Champions, National Ranking Champions and British Open Champions. It's been good, but now the mission starts to make next season even better!

We have completed our annual review with our coaches and staff and now we are in the process of creating a detailed Athlete Develpoment Plan (ADP), which will set the training schedule and targets for next year. It should be a good winter of hard training, we'll keep you up to date with the exciting stuff! Before then, we'll go and dig out our winter cags and pogies to get stuck in! Bye for now!

Photos:


Related Links:
Brit Open 09 article in P+J
British Open 09 Video by JJ (youtube)
2009 British Open and Llangollen Prem Results
]]> Mon, 26 Oct 2009 01:01:01 GMT http://bailliestottc2.co.uk/blog.php?article=149 http://bailliestottc2.co.uk/showgallery.php?id=60
]]> Wed, 07 Oct 2009 01:01:01 GMT http://bailliestottc2.co.uk/showgallery.php?id=60 http://bailliestottc2.co.uk/blog.php?article=148
The first weekend after the Worlds we were racing in Nottingham at the Paul McConkey Memorial Prem race. We went for a paddle on Friday to get back into the groove and were pleasantly surprised to find that not only had the course configuration been changed but it was actually very good for slalom. The race was run as a championship which meant two days of racing. This would have been no problem on a normal weekend but this weekend was also the inaugural JurgFest, a 4 day festival to celebrate GB Head Coach Jurg Gotz turning fifty, which made things pretty tiring. The weather was glorious all weekend and the courses set for both Heats and Finals were technical and fun. We paddled pretty solidly for the most part with a small touch and some time loss on our final run we had still done enough to bag the win. Thanks to Stafford and Stone for running another quality race and to Jurg for organising such a fun festival.

The next weekend was the Scottish Championships in Grandtully. Etienne had the weekend off since he was ineligible to race but I did my best to represent both of us by racing all 3 categories. I'd been up in Scotland all week on a mountain biking holiday with Campbell Walsh and I think chasing Campbell up hills for 4 days had tired me more than I realised. My first runs in all 3 categories (I paired up with Campbell for C2) were pretty horrendous. Happily things improved on second runs, by ten seconds in each class which made my efforts much more respectable. The champs was a lot of fun again and continues to be a great tribute to the spirit of the slalom community in Scotland. Thanks very much to all the organisers, chefs and everyone I borrowed equipment from.

Finally last weekend saw us travelling North again to a venue I hadn't visited for nearly 15 years. The Big 'Grrr' Abbey Rapids Prem race was held on the Abbey Rapids section of the River Tees. Leaving Nottingham early in the morning we had an apprehensive drive up, the poor weather forecast (very high winds and rain) and unreliable river levels made us pretty dubious about what sort of race experience to expect. We arrived to find glorious sunshine but very high winds which made racing seem unlikely but to our amazement the river being in a deep gorge meant that only the first 11 gates were intermittently affected by the wind. The river level was good and the course set made good use of the features and avoided the rocks. We were fortunate with the wind conditions on our first run, the gates were moving but not too badly and we had a pretty good run. Having never paddled the course before in C2 made it feel like a mini adventure which was cool. In between runs we went to the cafe for some coffee and cake. When we came back to the river we discovered that the river had risen by about half a metre. Since most of the upstream gates were now in the flow it was quickly obvious that 2nd runs would have to be cancelled so we helped lift the gates and then went for a surf on the flooded river. This was at least as much fun as 2nd runs would have been so we were pretty happy with our trip overall. Thanks to Nicky and Darren Cresser and the rest of their crew for putting on a solid old school style race.

We've got the weekend off racing this week but the weekend after we're off to Llangollen for the last premier race of the year and a chance to win the ranking championship again. Fingers crossed :)

Cheers Tim

Photos:


Related Links:
2009 Paul McConkey Prem Results
2009 Scottish Champs Results
2009 Big "Grrrr" Abbey Rapids Prem Results
Campbell Walsh
]]> Wed, 07 Oct 2009 01:01:01 GMT http://bailliestottc2.co.uk/blog.php?article=148 http://bailliestottc2.co.uk/showgallery.php?id=59
]]> Wed, 16 Sep 2009 01:01:01 GMT http://bailliestottc2.co.uk/showgallery.php?id=59 http://bailliestottc2.co.uk/blog.php?article=147
Photos:


Related Links:
ICF Video and Photos from Worlds 09
]]> Wed, 16 Sep 2009 01:01:01 GMT http://bailliestottc2.co.uk/blog.php?article=147 http://bailliestottc2.co.uk/blog.php?article=146
Once again the World Championships has passed in the blink of an eye. The racing yesterday was intense in every category and the atmosphere was amazing. Will try to write more about our race later when I have a bit more time. The short story is that we had a pretty good solid clean run in the semi-final to finish 2nd behind the Skantars. Our final run was a little bit crazy right from the first breakout where Etienne knocked my helmet half off so it was half over my eyes. We were slightly off line for pretty much the whole run but we poured everything we had into it to keep the run alive. When we finished we went into 2nd place which meant we had a guaranteed bronze medal. Sadly after about 20 minutes of celebrating we found out that the sharp eyed judges had added a penalty to our score which meant we dropped to fourth. The result was fair and we're still really happy to be fourth at the worlds but it seemed a little bitter sweet after thinking we were going to get to stand on the podium again. The Hochschorners dominated again to win, the Skantars took Silver and the young Slovenian lads stormed down to win Bronze.

The big story for GB was undoubtedly Lizzie Neave bagging the Bronze medal which was awesome! Campbell Walsh got fourth and Huw Swetnam finished his best ever year with Fifth which meant that GB won the team MK1 prize. David Florence was 5th in C1 and him and Rich were 10th in the C2 final. Overall it was a very good race for GB and we were all really happy to be part of it.

Thanks very much to all the GB supporters who travelled out and chased us down the course it was much appreciated. We've made a rough calculation that we're currently in 4th position in the supporters league behind the Peter Kauzer fan club, the Slovaks and the French. Speaking to some of the lads we're optimistic that with the addition of some musical instruments (hopefully Dave's bagpipes) we can move up the league.

Check out the official website below for full results and probably some photos and maybe video, the internet here is too bad to check it out.

Cheers everyone, Tim

Photos:


Related Links:
2009 World Championships - La Seu d'Urgell
]]> Mon, 14 Sep 2009 01:01:01 GMT http://bailliestottc2.co.uk/blog.php?article=146 http://bailliestottc2.co.uk/blog.php?article=145
First off the Women's C1 teams went down as forerunners since with only 4 nations competing the class was inquorate. The GB girls did a pretty good job and finished in 3rd position.

Next up was the Men's C2. We had a pretty good run in qualification marred slightly by me and Etienne collecting two touches which left us second in the Semi behind the Czechs. Our finals run was a solid team effort once again, sadly me and Etienne again collected a touch which put us in 3rd position with one team left to go. Happily for us the Czech team had some trouble on their run and went in behind us. It was frustrating to have collected the penalty which cost us a silver medal but overall we were very happy to have won a World Championship medal! The Slovak boys won Gold by quite a margin and the Germans sneaked in front of us for Silver.

The GB girls have historically been a safe bet for a Team medal. This year at the European Champs in Nottingham they broke a long tradition of Bronze medals by winning Gold and we had high hopes they'd be able to do the same again. We didn't, however, expect them to do it in quite the style they did. They won by an emphatic 5 seconds to become World Team Champions, WELL DONE!

The GB MK1 team had an interesting semi-final run with 3rd boat Huw Swetnam holing 2nd boat Richard Hounslow's boat in the last breakout. Despite Richard rapidly sinking on his way to the finish line they still managed to qualify for the final. Big up to Vajda for providing the rapid repair service that allowed Rich to race the same boat just over an hour later, now that is a hot mix! In the final they charged down their run until Huw very gingerly entered the last breakout being super careful not to spear Rich again he dropped a few strokes low. Then it was time for him to deploy the famous Swetnam finish sprint to bring the boys home in a time fast enough for a Silver medal after the dust settled, nice work again!

Tomorrow is the individual finals, we haven't seen the course yet, demos are in an hour, but it's expected to be quite a bit trickier. Should be exciting, check out the link below for live results.

Cheers Tim

Photos:


Related Links:
2009 World Championships - La Seu d'Urgell
LIVE RESULTS
]]> Sat, 12 Sep 2009 01:01:01 GMT http://bailliestottc2.co.uk/blog.php?article=145 http://bailliestottc2.co.uk/blog.php?article=144
We had a solid first run posting the second fastest time but collecting a 2 second penalty to finish 5th after first runs. At that point our main job for the day was pretty much done but we were keen to improve on second runs to remain high up. Our second run was one of those faster-slower runs, we had some really quick sections but followed immediately by a time loss so overall it was a bit worse than our first run. This meant that we dropped to 10th, still a solid qualifying position but not quite what we were looking for. Not to worry though, the Semi-Finals is a clean slate.

Our team mates Florence-Hounslow paddled well with two clean runs they qualified in 4th whilst Goddard - Radmore made things a little more exciting by qualifying as last boat in 20th position. It bodes well for the team race on Saturday that GB have 3 C2s in the Semi-Final.

In the K1 Women's race Lizzie Neave ripped up on her second run to qualify in a lofty 5th position. Louise Donnington posted a quick run as well to qualify in 11th. Laura Blakeman was very sadly the shock of the race missing qualification after showing extremely fast pace in the build up to the race, commiserations to her.

Today is heats for the Men's K1 and C1 classes as well as the Women's C1. GB have got strong contenders in all categories but the racing promises to be very tight so good luck to all of them. On that note I'm off to support second runs, check out the link below for live results.

Cheers Tim

Photos:


Related Links:
LIVE RESULTS
2009 World Championships - La Seu d'Urgell
]]> Fri, 11 Sep 2009 01:01:01 GMT http://bailliestottc2.co.uk/blog.php?article=144 http://bailliestottc2.co.uk/blog.php?article=143
The opening ceremony is tonight at 8pm and then tomorrow afternoon will see the first round of heats, with the C2 and Womens Kayak racing. The opening ceremony is eagerly anticipated, the Spanish have traditionally pulled out all the stops - the world expects!

Our training leading up to the race has gone well, we've been doing tough courses and really trying to get around as much of the river as possible. Strangely, no other nation seems as keen as Team GB to move the gates (the first nation on in the morning has the responsability of setting the course for them and everyone else), so we've done quite a lot of the same gates this last week. Still, there's no doubt that the course design will still leave us with some thinking to do.

The rest of the team has been on good form too, we haven't heard anyone losing their temper which indicates good mental control and discipline. The time we've spent here in the last few weeks will stand us in good stead, I believe. We've also watched some of the other countries' training slots. The Slovaks look strong (perhaps unsurprisingly) and the French certainly know their way around, having done Olympic and Team selection here for the last three years.

Sadly, I have not been able to find TV listings that include the race, so at the moment it seems like we've lost out to Formula 1, tennis, athletics and boxing. Let's hope the race makes them sit up and take notice! But keep and eye out, things can change at quite late notice.

We'll keep you posted and maybe put some pictures up if we're not too busy. Now, it's time to relax and get ready to get stuck in! Bye for now

Etienne

P.s. Monday evening was the traditional coaches running race to the church. This year saw the Spanish take full control of the organisation for the first time and they did a really good job. The race course was changed from the up and down race to a simple charge from the slalom course to the church where the Spanish provided food and drinks refreshment for competitors and spectators alike. This year was by far the biggest entry with 28 competitors and countless spectators following the race in a caravan of motor vehicles of all shapes and sizes as well as a number of bicycles. Team GB were well represented despite reigning champion Mark Delaney having to pull out due to illness. Previous champion Ian 'Razbo' Raspin was pre-race favourite in the mens race whilst Chloe Nelson was also favourite in the womens race despite a late entry from '96 Olympic Medallist Myriam Fox.

Started by a firecracker in an inimitable Spanish style the race got off to a very fast start led out by a lycra clad Swede and tall French competitor. Once the climbing started though it was Razbo who took up the lead and pushed on but Spanish entry Anders followed him away looking very comfortable. Nearing the top of the climb Anders showed Razbo a clean pair of heals and opened up a winning lead. Razbo gritted his teeth and hung on for a solid second place in front of the Vajda competitor who only found out about the race a couple of hours before it started. Chloe took the win in the womens race and Shaun Pearce also won the most improved prize.

Overall it was a superb event and the food and drinks at the top were very good as well. Well done to all the competitors and also to Xabi and the other Spanish organisers. I've got loads of photos but for now here's one, will upload more once I find myself on a better internet connection.

Cheers Tim

Photos:


Related Links:
2009 World Championships - La Seu d'Urgell
]]> Wed, 09 Sep 2009 01:01:01 GMT http://bailliestottc2.co.uk/blog.php?article=143 http://bailliestottc2.co.uk/blog.php?article=142
We've been here for two sessions, one last thing of the day and the other the first thing. That meant on Thursday we waited all day to paddle and on Friday the whole day waited for us after we'd paddled. Getting on the water to witness a red sunrise over the Cadi was pretty nice, it distracted from the early time our watches were telling us! Getting back into the groove is a work in progress, but we are on a good build up back to where we were a few weeks ago.

It has been tough training at home after we had paddled so well at the training camp and we have been struggling a bit. But we are keeping a steady ship in all departments and concentrating on the simple things. The race will arrive in its own time!

The town and course in Seu has undergone some big changes too. They're still crazily paving their way along the route of the opening ceremony, new stands have gone up along the riverbank and there are some excellent pieces of 'Kayart' to be seen (check the link, or see them for yourselves) dotted around the town.

All in all it is shaping up nicely to be the culmination of the 2009 season! We haven't found out about TV yet, but we'll let you know when we do. Bye for now

Etienne

Photos:


Related Links:
2009 World Championships - La Seu d'Urgell
Kayart
]]> Sun, 30 Aug 2009 01:01:01 GMT http://bailliestottc2.co.uk/blog.php?article=142 http://bailliestottc2.co.uk/blog.php?article=141
We're pretty chuffed to have finished 4th in the Overall World Cup. I'm not sure quite how the positions were calculated. After World Cup Race 3 we were in 5th position on equal points with Kucera/Batik. Now after the final continental race, which was the Pan-American champs, we have moved up to 4th position still on equal points with Kucera/Batik. Seems strange to have been promoted a place but it's fair to say we're happy to take it. It was also quite good that no crews in the top 10 had a continental race so it was a fair reflection of the World Cup results. For us it would have been nice to move up a place and get into the cash prizes but we'd have needed a medal result to do that, 4th seems like a fair reflection of our good consistent set of races. If we'd wanted to get into the cash we should have gone to the Pan-Ams and we could have won the World Cup overall but then all the crews in the top 11 were in that position. Hopefully the rules will get a bit better sorted out for next year.

After the second release for 2009 we're world ranked 8th. It's fair to say I haven't fully understood the World Ranking calculation yet which I should add is more laziness on my part than that it isn't clearly explained. Being world ranked in the top 10 seems pretty good though especially considering our pretty dismal results last year. Hopefully we can continue to build on our performances so far this season and edge our way up the rankings.

Which brings me back to the present, we're still in La Seu d'Urgell training on the World Championships venue. Happily since our last update the pump has been fixed so the water level is up to full flow which is a massive improvement. Sadly the damage to our boat has all been done already so we're still leaking like a sieve which is very frustrating considering how much new boats cost. Not to worry though as soon as we get home our boat will be into the repair shed for Etienne to work his resin magic and patch it up brand new for the Worlds. Aside from equipment training here has been going quite well, we're pushing quite a high volume of training ahead of a taper for the worlds but are still managing some nice paddling here and there. 3 more days to go and then it's back to Notts.

Cheers Tim

Photos:


Related Links:
2009 ICF World Ranking - 2nd Release
2009 Overall ICF World Cup Ranking
2009 World Championships - La Seu d'Urgell
]]> Wed, 12 Aug 2009 01:01:01 GMT http://bailliestottc2.co.uk/blog.php?article=141 http://bailliestottc2.co.uk/showgallery.php?id=58
]]> Mon, 03 Aug 2009 01:01:01 GMT http://bailliestottc2.co.uk/showgallery.php?id=58 http://bailliestottc2.co.uk/blog.php?article=140
The first week was very tough, but ended in good fashion. The course is running on low water (we believe that one of the pumps is broken) and so the course is quite boney, shallow and not quite as powerful as normal. Our brand new Vajda 'H', just two session old before arriving, looks like it has been in use for several months. The tail is all dog-eared and some sections of the seams are split. I broke my paddle too. This added to the usual difficulties of paddling here, with the very narrow course layout and small eddies.

Our last few sessions saw us getting used to the delicacy of our new craft and also finding some nice movements on the river, so that once our boat was repaired on Saturday afternoon, we could declare the week ended with a good sense of satisfaction.

In our spare time we like to get out into the natural world, but around here that is normally found at the top of very steep hills. So we drove our car as far as we could and scrambled up a shale bank, where we found a beautiful meadow, overlooking the Segre River valley. We tucked into our picnic, took a few photos, breathed in the air and then went home to chill out.

Next week we will be building more pace into our sessions and starting to try and get a bit more racey. With a bit more water that might be more fun, but I think we'll still have a very focussed approach. We'll keep you posted.

Etienne

Photos:
]]> Sun, 02 Aug 2009 01:01:01 GMT http://bailliestottc2.co.uk/blog.php?article=140 http://bailliestottc2.co.uk/blog.php?article=138
Our semi-final run this morning was a little bit sketchy with a 3 second time loss at gate 2 and then a touch at gate 11. On such a tough course I think most crews had a bit of an adventure and so it turned out that even with our mistakes we qualified for the Final in 9th just behind our team mates Florence/Hounslow in 8th.

As is always the case in Augsburg finals racing was a noisy experience, particularly for the Germans. Our final run was pretty exciting, we got a bit out of shape in the top section but managed to keep the run alive and had a pretty quick couple of middle sections. At the bottom of the course we lost a bit of time by not quite getting a good surf into the second last breakout but overall we were pretty happy with the run. We went into the lead but then had to wait anxiously for the next 8 boats to come down to see where we would finish. As it panned out we finished 5th 0.15secs of the Bronze medal, close but no cigar! Local heroes Becker/Henze ripped up to win by over 2seconds ahead of the Hochschorner brothers in Silver and Volf/Stepanek in Bronze.

The MK1 was also very exciting with paddlers pushing the lines to the limit quite a few went to hard and there was some spectacular action. With 3 GB MK1 in the semi-final we were hoping to get a couple into the final but in the end only Campbell Walsh made it in. Rich Hounslow only just missed out in 11th and Huw Swetnam also had good pace but incurred two 2sec penalties on his run which took him outside the bubble. The final saw some ballistic paddling from all the top paddlers. Campbell didn't quite have the pace to get on the podium which was populated by Peter Kauzer nearly 3seconds ahead in Gold then Alexander Grimm in Silver and Daniele Molmenti in Bronze.

The last class down the river was the WC1. Second chance GB WC1 selection is this weekend in Nottingham so there were no GB entries in this class. Ros Lawrence from Australia put in a solid performance to take the Gold medal.

With our World Cup races completed we're going to have an evening off tonight and hopefully catch up with many friends (and perhaps make some more) at the boathouse party then it's down the river again tomorrow to support the GB MC1 and WK1s. Results will be live on the internet again via the link below.

Lastly thanks very much to all the GB supporters today, our finals run was chased down by an absolute racket. Cheers Tim

Photos:


Related Links:
2009 World Cup 3, Augsburg GER
LIVE RESULTS
Campbell Walsh
Richard Hounslow
David Florence
Becker - Henze
Lawrence Sisters
]]> Sat, 11 Jul 2009 01:01:01 GMT http://bailliestottc2.co.uk/blog.php?article=138 http://bailliestottc2.co.uk/blog.php?article=137
Our first run was a solid clean run with a few time losses which was good enough for 5th after first runs. We were pretty sure this would be enough to get us into the semi but we were keen to improve so that we'd be seeded off later in the semi-final. Our second run was quite good with some really fast sections but it was let down a little by a touch on gate 7 and a slow last breakout. Aside from the Hochschorners who were a couple of second in the lead the times were all pretty close so should be an exciting race tomorrow.

Big Up to the GB MK1s who all qualified for the semi-final for the first time this season. Solid racing all round, nice work lads.

This afternoon the WK1 and MC1 classes are racing quals so check out the live results via the link below.

Cheers Tim

Photos:


Related Links:
2009 World Cup 3, Augsburg GER
LIVE RESULTS
]]> Fri, 10 Jul 2009 01:01:01 GMT http://bailliestottc2.co.uk/blog.php?article=137 http://bailliestottc2.co.uk/blog.php?article=136
We finished 5th today in the final which was an improvement of two places from last weekend. Hopefully we can do the same next week and hence step onto the podium. We had a couple of mistakes on our final run getting stuck in a stopper at gate 10 and then hitting the last gate but other than that most of our run was acceptable considering we'd only had two training sessions on the course.

Quick mentions: Campbell 'Meatyballs' Walsh ripped up to win the MK1, his first world cup gold medal and he was actually the only MK1 to beat Martikan. Jana Dukatova became the first women to win two medals in different categories at a world cup race. Louise Donnington had a personal best 5th place finish. The whole Slovak team were very impressive winning 9 medals overall.

Right then, off to Augsburg, Cheers Tim.

Photos:


Related Links:
2009 World Cup 2, Bratislava SVK
Campbell Walsh
]]> Sun, 05 Jul 2009 01:01:01 GMT http://bailliestottc2.co.uk/blog.php?article=136