Sunday

A lovely sunny day in the pyrenees . We could see the mountains from the course and some still had a smattering of snow. The race was a reasonably low key affair for us kiwis as invitees in this French race. We arrived and it was more like an NZ race with them still putting out the course. When in Europe you think that all races are big affairs and it was reassuring to the team to see that the French have races like ours, but with a large number of paddlers of all ages. ( 100 plus entries), hand held timing and fairly manual results. They have a system to get their rankings up and this was one of the lower ranked events. (n3 OR 4) N1 being like the French championships. There were still French team paddlers like Mathilde Pichery there and she was doing safety as well as racing. Our guys and kidda, in some borrowed kit did demos, Callum also did foreruns and then were first up to race, one after another. They did really well in demos but the C boaters got some 50's between them in their first runs . The race was a festive affair with French music, a woman making crepes and we needed to bring out our best French as we really didnt find anyone who spoke English. The French, in their relaxed style, took 90 minutes for lunch and second runs started at 2pm. Everyone had a good second race and performed well. We didnt get the full final times before we left but Callum was within a couple of seconds of a top French guy, the C2 after taking the first run a bit lightly were within 5 seconds of a good French crew, Jane and Shaun also putting good runs together and performing well. Everyone enjoyed the day and on the way home found the seniors accommodation and had a cup of tea with them. Luuka and Lou have composed a NZ slalom song which we hope makes it to U tube so we can post for all. Cooked dinner, watched a movie from Bradyns hard drive ( Defiance) and now bed is calling. Have a speed session on the natural course at Pau, early in the morning, then the first of the nation trainings at 3pm on the World Cup course.