Augsburg World Cup 1 | Joe Clarke
It’s always good to get on the road and start the international racing season. This year World Cup 1 was in Augsburg (Germany) an iconic venue on the racing circuit having hosted the Olympics back in 1972 and most of the course remains very similar to this day!
We arrived on the Sunday evening and had our first session on the course the following day, with the new racing schedule starting on Thursday it didn’t feel like long before we were getting down to business. This was my first international race of the season so I wasn’t sure where I would stack up in an international field, I knew I was in good shape and just hoped that I could show what I was capable of throughout the race.
Qualification went to plan and I executed a solid run and was very happy to take the win and build the confidence for the next rounds of the competition. My Semi-final didn’t go to plan and had a couple of mistakes/time losses but I did my best to keep it on track and “stay in the moment” as I know Augsburg is a tricky course to navigate. I crossed the finish line and placed 9th to which I was very relieved, although I did have the dreaded asterisk next to my name, I had to wait nervously whilst a penalty review on one of the gates was conducted, it was then taken away and I was confirmed into the final!
My final run got off to a much better start and I was happy with the feeling and pacing of the whole run, I knew it was going well and just needed to make it to the finish with no errors, unfortunately on the exit of the last upstream I picked up a touch so dug deep to the finish and left nothing out there, when I crossed the line I saw -0.05 I had just managed to sneak ahead of fellow Peak PS team member Hannes Aigner. There was a nervous wait in the kiss and cry zone where I watched the remaining 8 boats of the final take on the difficult 23 gate course. Giovanni De Gennaro seemed to be out of the race by gate 5 but delivered an almost faultless run from there down and smashed his way into the lead pushing me to second where I remained for the rest of the final taking a silver medal.
Kayak Cross
It’s always exciting to sit on the start line with the opportunity to win a second medal of the weekend, Augsburg has good memories for me in this discipline having won the world championships here less than 12 months ago!This race was very different though, the course significantly longer and I had to show a different set of skills. It seems everyone knows my tactics of get out front and stay out front and this was no longer enough.
After some hard fought rounds I had made it through to the final, unfortunately I found myself at the back of the pack coming into the roll zone approaching the iconic “Zoom Flume” I noticed the other 3 go to the up right so I took the opportunity to head to the left hand breakout to try and implement a sweep upstream (something which I have worked on this winter) in order to claw back some precious places. It appeared at first that I had done just that I was in second place until Martin Dougoud came down on me like a wrecking ball as I went past Moby Dick (rock feature in the centre of the channel) pushing me to 3rd place, with Hannes Aigner hot on his tail I knew my work wasn’t over, I battled hard with local boy Hannes and managed to push him the wrong side of the next downstream gate! My focus then switched back to Martin where I gave it everything to try and overtake on the open bottom half. Unfortunately, my efforts were in vain and I remained in 3rd taking my second medal for the weekend!
This event is progressing very fast and I’m sure each race will provide different challenges and I will need different skills to be successful. I’m very excited to get back on the water in Prague for World Cup 2 where I hope I can continue to show this level of form!
All photos © Balint Vekassy
