Back in Brat

Only two weeks today until i race at the World Champs! Very exciting. So i have been back in Bratislava training now for over a week. We have two Slovakian coaches Jana and Jergus coaching some of the New Zealand team. I have found it very beneficial having someone to give me feedback, set courses and different combinations of gates to try and someone to video me and then review the video after the session. Their english is getting better too which is a bonus. I feel i have improved since i got here and it has been great using my own boat. It turns so good. However there are a few more scratches than i would like and two cracks one of them has been fixed and the other one might have to wait for Dad when i get home. But i reckon you're not trying hard enough if your boat doesn't get a few scratchs...

The course has a drop at the bottom that the coaches call Niagara this is where i cracked the tail of my boat so i have been working on getting the gates in there better. Its such a good course i am loving training here everyday. The days have been getting super hot we have had fantastic sunny weather and today the temperature got up to 40 degrees!! Luckily we have sessions early in the morning and late in the evening which helps to avoid the heat. Although today we had a rest day so walked up to the Bratislava castle and around town. This was extremely HOT! I then had a chocolate chilli flavoured ice cream to cool down.

We have found some really nice places around town, we had dinner down at the river front the other night with some of the teams parents. There are bean bags on the grass and lots of people just hanging out. We also had a New Zealand team dinner so that was good to see everyone. On our walk home we saw this guy in the street floating i really want to know how he does it now.


                                                             Photos by Ben Gibb

                                                           
                                                               Bratislava Hrad Castle

Photos by Paul Roozendaal

                                                                          Niagara

                                                         
                                                           Photos by Aaron Osbourne

                                                       Wheres wally....oh i mean Nikki

The sessions are getting much more crowded now and unfortunately we have the same time slot as the chinese there are so many of them and they just seem to pull out in front you constantly this get a bit frustrating but we haven't had any really bad carnage yet. Well i better go now full runs in the morning and we're leavin at 6.30am.

Prague

I have been in Prague for a week now. We have been training most days and getting used to the course, it is very different to Bratislava a lot more features to use and a bit flatter, the eddys are different too. So you have to paddle a lot more and be super fit. We have been into the city twice it takes about half an hour on the bus and the train. We walked around the old town and went into the Torture Museum which was very interesting I'm glad i wasn't around in those times. We had subway for lunch and a ice cream. We had a loook around in some of the souveneir shops and clothes stores like H and M, New Yorker which are massive. We also went to the Charles bridge which was as i rembered it packed full of people. We also went into the city after training for dinner one night with a few of the guys from the Australian team. The architecture in Prague is amazing lots of old buildings, a lot of them with scaffolding, it is quite a contrast to the communist buildings in Bratislava. We have a nice restaurant at the place we're staying and an Italian place by the course where we have been eating. We also went to Letnany a big mall about ten minutes away to watch a movie with the Australians it was luckily in English and only had Czech subtitiles. It has been good to do something other than kayaking and have a look around the city.

Torture Museum

Charles Bridge

Torture Museum

I raced my first World Cup yesterday which was awesome. I was a bit nervous not knowing what to expect but my first run went pretty well. I only got one touch however i was pretty slow compared to the others in my class. I felt that i was a bit late in some of the staggers and had to use some back strokes which slowed me down a lot. I had a bit to work on for the next run. It was going well up until gate 10 where I didn't have the right angle of my kayak which meant i dropped into a hole sideways and tipped making me low into gate 10. The rest of my race went pretty good i was a bit low into some of the gates but overall i was happy with my first world cup race. You've got to start somewhere i guess. It has been interesting talking to other athletes about how racing comes down to experience and it usually takes about 6 years to be competitive. I'm glad i had this race and now know what i need to work on for the World Champs. I need to be more focused on what lines i will take in my race preperation. I got my new kayak today which is awesome! I took it for spin on the flat and it turns like a dream.It will be good to not be paddling a test boat that is too big for me any more.We have a training camp in Bratislava next week with a Slovakian coach so that will be really good. We watched the semi-finals on live czech TV this morning and went to the course to watch finals this afternoon. It has been a tough race for everyone none of the athletes from the New Zealand team got through to semi-finals. The Czech paddlers have been dominating you have to be fast and clean to do well on this course. It was an awesome atmosphere today watchin the finals especially the K1 Men it came down to 0.05seconds between 1st and 2nd. Vavrinec won a czech paddler, the woman k1 final and c2 men final is tomorrow. We just had two games of ten pin bowling at the place we're stayin i came 2nd and 3rd. Well I'm off to dinner now ciao.

Training

Bratislava Training

                                                         Awesome Facials....not

It has been a really good week training in Bratislava. I watched the teen cup last weekend, the kiwi juniors did awesome. My brother Carl came 3rd and Callum came 5th so it was good to watch that race, Tommy and Finn paddled well also, they have 3 more races each weekend for the next 3 weeks, so i hope they keep doing well. My kayak hasn't been made yet so i was using a sweet spiderman test kayak but it was a large so i went to the factory yesterday and swapped it for a smaller one but i still can't reach the footpegs so hopefully i get my one this week sometime before the world cup race in Prague. I have a big foam block at the moment so my feet can reach something. We picked up Ben and Shaun at the airport Sunday night and rearranged the apartment so that we have a bedroom each. I am in the living room but there are no curtains so i have hung sheets on the windows. We have eaten out at a few nice places around Bratislava, the Pizza over here is really good and the Slovak Pub has a good garlic soup served in a bread bowl and the blueberry dumplings were interesting...We have been out for dinner with the Kiwis, Swiss and Aussies.

The paddling has been fun, the course is quite challenging especially when there are lots of other countries paddlers on the river to dodge. There is a drop at the bottom of the course which is awesome lots of different moves to try, i got a bit of a beat down in there the other day so had lots of water up my nose. I trained at 8am this morning and then we packed up our apartment and drove to Prague it is a 350km drive but with the motor ways it didn't take too long. We dropped our boats off at the course and checked in at our super flash accommodation we have an indoor pool, bowling alley and sauna and only ten minutes from course. We have had pretty good weather so far a few rainy days and today it got up to 35 degrees. All four of us got pretty sun burnt the other day. We are now training in Prague until the World Cup which starts next Friday. My first World Cup race so i'm pretty excited.