Hangzhou Super Cup | Mallory Franklin
The ICF decided to run an event in Hangzhou, China, the aim of the event was both to showcase a variety of paddle sport events, alongside it being an opportunity to test out some new ideas. It was held at the Fuyang Water sports centre in Hangzhou, which had preciously been built for the 2022 Asian Games.
The schedule for the racing at Hangzhou was a based on the new proposed schedule for next year, with single run heats into a 12 boat final. We raced three different events across the three days, classic slalom, short slalom and Kayak Cross. Short Slalom being the only new addition to a normal racing schedule, short slalom is, as the name suggests a shortened version of the classic slalom, with 4 ups and 12 gates but set maybe a little tougher than a classic slalom course. It was a reasonably long schedule, given a large portion of the competitors arrived two days before racing started, and especially if you tripled up across the days.
After a long season, this race provided an opportunity to experience a new environment new schedule and new course, and maybe a little socialising on the side.
Given the small amount of training available the course for the classic slalom was set during the training sessions, which was a new experience for us all and allowed us to maybe better deal with not knowing the water at all. Tha classic slalom culminated in Camille Prigent, Ryan Westley, Gabriela Satkova and Giovanni De Gennaro taking the honours. Then the next day we were back for the short slalom, we had no session on this course and not even any demos, so everyone had to rely on their own planning and decision making to deliver the best they can, Camille showed her dominace and took the honors again, this time joined by Luka Bozic, Vit Prindis and a joint win in the c1w between Monica Doria Vilarrubla and Marjorie Delassus.
The final day was reserved for the Kayak Cross, everyone was a tad nervous about how the race would go, given we had to use boats provided by the ICF that were not the usual shape you would choose for Kayak cross. To allow for a training session in the morning, the time trial was dropped and we instead were ranked off our world ranking. The rest of the racing ran as normal. There was a few interesting moments in the racing, one being Joe's deck popping of the ramp and him subsequently slowing sinking his way down the course. But at the end of the day, it was Tereza Kneblova and Geilndo Chiarello that walked away with the Gold.
The super cup was a really cool experience and it was really interesting to be able to pop over and watch Canoe Polo or Canoe Sprint in the breaks between our racing, I hope we can have more events like this in the future!
Photos ICF
