|
Adidas Sickline 2011 For the 5th time in a row the adidas sickline extreme kayak world championships took place in Oetz/Austria at the beginning of october again. Great weather, perfect water levels and organization and especially the impressive list of world class kayakers (slalom and freestyle worldchampions, whitewater experts, experienced expeditioners…) made the event as amazing as every year.
My team mate Jakobus Stenglein and I both had two pretty solid qualification runs on the easier stretch of the river, putting us on 15th and 12th rank, respectively. Everybody already had to pull really hard to get good positions for the final on the following day.
The top 48 kayakers out of a field of 150 qualified for the final upstream on the Wellerbruecke, which was then run in a head-to-head modus during the quarter- and semifinals. Only the top 15 finally advance to the "super final" – one decisive single run, go hard or go home.
Jakobus and I had quite similar races, actually: No major problems in the quarters, ready for our fast opponents in the semis. But there, we unfortunately both got knocked out: Jakobus flipped in the core section ("TNT cataract") and went down the next drop upside down losing a lot of time there. I had a good beginning and was quite happy with my run - until the last drop, the "champions' killer". My boof stroke came too early, so I lost all of my speed in the hole at the bottom. Eventually, Jakobus came 25th and I finished on rank 22.
Well, due to those mistakes in the semi-finals we didn't advance to the super final this year, so that we couldn't repeat our good results from the last couple of years. Anyway, even if it didn't go according to plan this time, we're already looking forward to next year to give our best again!
Just like last year, Sam Sutton took home the WC-belt with an outstanding final run. Mike Dawson finished 2nd, Germany's Paul Boeckelmann 3rd - congratulations to all of them! The super final was amazing: seven paddlers finished within only one second, which meant some really tight racing and absolutely no room for mistakes.
For more information, full results, the (re-)live webstream of the super final and more photos, please visit www.adidas-sickline.com.www.adidas-sickline.com.
Article by Lukas Kalkbrenner (Posted on the 1st Nov 2011 by pete) |
RSS 2.0