One of our favorites play spots and also competitions of the year is in Graz. The local kayakers are so enthusiastic and really loving the sport, so they always made such a nice events where you just feel great. It's not only about competition but also about meeting all the friends and have really good time while kayaking. To get ready we left a bit earlier for some training. To get use to the hole you always need some time so we rather leave sooner and have some easy trainings as to come to late and being in stress if everything will work out. At Friday there was a small grilling party but only easy because on Saturday was the kayak freestyle event. For competitors it is difficult when whole competition is in one day because you have to make sure to keep the energy for the final runs. In freestyle I did pretty solid. I won all the start and also in the finals I finished on the first place. Nina did really good as well. She was fighting little bit to keep the landings straight which costs her some points and finished second behind Zosia Tula from Poland. After the freestyle there was a fun competition where my job was to make some night pictures with the flashes. After the nice evening and little celebration of the placing we got we had to get ready for next day boater cross in the middle of the city.
The course is really easy class white water, almost flat water but anyway you have to be really fast to beat all the slalom kayakers and creek boaters. In Cross where 4 people were starting at once and only 2 got into the next run, I was winning almost all the starts. In the finals I got the worst position on the ramp. I knew if I don't get the fast jump down I will loose. Luckily I managed second place after the ramp and with some small fights I was able to keep it until the end so I finished on 2nd place.
Nina had a bit less luck and underestimated the ramp. Unfortunately she also stuck on the shallow place and she could not manage the approaching place.
So the perfect weekend was over with some nice trophies.
Next days we are leaving for another competition to Prague.
This season is so busy with such a cool events to be. Awesome!
See you soon.
Peter
