Canoe Slalom NZ Junior & U23 Teams

Enjoyed watching the C1 boys and jess race today. Running down and cheering them on felt cool to be part of the NZ team. Semi's tomorrow another pretty average course but its the same for everyone I guess. Feeling nervous but I'm ready for the clean run I'm going to have. Hope the others run down with me supporting love it when I get cheers to go faster. - Cole O'Connor-stratton.

For some reason I didn't feel to nervous before my first run, must have been the excitement of the race. Its kind of cool when I think of all the training I have been doing for this one race and its finally here. My first run wasn't to good, I touched 5 gates so had 10 seconds added onto my time which I was quite dissapointed with. But I was still amped for my second run and so didn't spend to long worrying about the first.My second run was ay better then my first and was clean! It felt pretty good afterwards going for 5 touches to 0. Made it through to the semis in 28th place which I am stoked with because that was my goal for this years race as I'm still a baby and have next year to look forward to and improve on. It was really cool to see the more experienced girls paddle after me, especially the top 2 Karolina Galuskova and Jess Fox. Getting a bit nervous for tomorrow but pretty excited! - Jess Bailey

Ben had an average day today. First runs had a couple of touches and he got stuck in the nottom hole for a while. 2nd runs were looking better and at the end of all the paddlers he was in 30th just scraping in to semis.....or so we thought. A few minutes later we found out the Czech guy one second behind him got a penalty taken off because he hadn't hit gate 21. So, he was promoted and knocked Ben to 31st. A cruel blow after what happened last month with missing out on an Olympic spot. However, Ben has now bounced back and will be back at the river with us in the morning cheering on our 4 semi finalists. They will all have their work cut out to make the top 10 finalists but we hope to see some good runs in the hope of breaking in to the top 20's.

Tonight we watched the demo runs after dinner at a great mine themed restaurant. A local couple bought us a round of drinks after seeing our well dressed team enjoying their time in Wausau. The semis course has some difficult little moves in it and will make for some interesting racing. After dropping the team at home I joined Dale at the team leaders evening reception at the local art museum. A lovely gathering with great company and a classical music band.

Catch ya tomorrow.