Cole found a C1 to borrow so he could race teams with Ben and Shaun. They looked pretty professional up to gate 9 and all nailed the main drop, Cole even pulled off the money move forwards. Then Ben caught an edge in 10 and got a 50. Cole liked the idea so threw in a role just after 17 too. They couldn't persuade Shaun to join in the party but they all blame him for their issues due to the blinding brightness of his new paddle shirt ;-)
On the way home, we hit all 3 traffic lights in a row on green, something we have been trying for 2 weeks. So all in all, a pretty successful finish to the day......
Special mention to Kellie Bailey who sat and judged the same first 5 gates for 5 days. Pretty boring spot, but a great job, well done.
Party time tonight followed by an early morning drive to Chicago to the fun park. shopping then flights home.
It's been a pleasure to be on this trip. Dale has been a managing legend, running errands, shopping and attending meetings and making sure everyone is early for everything.
The athletes have all tried their best and have learnt new things for their future trips and races.
Thanks Wausau, you have been so welcoming to us again. We leave many friends behind tomorrow morning. Many we will see at future races or on holiday in New Zealand we hope soon.
Next year will see the junior and U23 team racing World Champs in Liptovsky Mikulas in Slovakia. Get out there training hard. One of you won't be doing so many full runs but I hope the rest go hard and have a great future in the sport.
If you are keen to coach or manage the team, get involved now. Good luck for the future everyone.
Goodbye.
Andy.
P.S. Thanks for all the fish.
CSNZ Junior & U23 Teams
Monday, July 16, 2012
Saturday.
Here are some articles in the local paper about racing. Sorry, can't work out how to rotate them all.
Most of the team went and watched the finals and got to see some spectacular racing with new champions, including the first ever U23 world champions being crowned. In the afternoon Cole, Finn and Geoff raced the U18 teams event. Despite some good looking training there were a few mistakes made. They finished 8th with Slovenia taking out the title.
After racing we went in to town and walked around the chalk fest (photos below). Then that night we went to Rib Fest. The boys did their very best to peer pressure Jess in to temporarily shelving her vegetarian status but she stood strong. Many ribs were eaten (and a pizza) and then we watched the balloon glow but everyone was a bit too tired to hang around waiting for the fireworks at 10pm.
Sunday, July 15, 2012
NZ World Champions!!!!
Now I have everyone's attention.
DO MORE FULL RUNS AND COMPETITIONS.
NZ has great paddlers and athletes but the one thing that lets us down time and time again is our ability to compete to our full potential.
In order to be a World champion we need to train harder than the current world champions and I believe some of our guys are very very close to that level. However, our athletes do very few fulls runs and are left trailing even further behind in terms of races to compete in at home.
Athletes, work together to make full runs sessions happen. Set courses together, time yourselves and each other and help each other improve. A target of 1000 full runs this year would be a great start. 500 would be an absolute minimum to bring yourselves up to a great racers level. Prepare as many of them like a race run as possible. How will you fit it in? Hey, I don't care if you ditch every other form of training for the year if you come back and you've done 1000+ full runs.
Parents, go and time the sessions and video the paddling for athletes to review.
Everyone, organize more races. 10 weekends a year would be a start, 15 even better.
If everyone works together on this goal in a big positive push, then I absolutely guarantee we'll be reading less and less blog posts that say "if it wasn't for the mistakes......"
I'm writing this now because it's fresh in my mind, I have the attention of lots of interested parties reading this blog and I truly believe after watching and experiencing these World Champs that they have the potential to reach the top.
DO MORE FULL RUNS AND COMPETITIONS.
NZ has great paddlers and athletes but the one thing that lets us down time and time again is our ability to compete to our full potential.
In order to be a World champion we need to train harder than the current world champions and I believe some of our guys are very very close to that level. However, our athletes do very few fulls runs and are left trailing even further behind in terms of races to compete in at home.
Athletes, work together to make full runs sessions happen. Set courses together, time yourselves and each other and help each other improve. A target of 1000 full runs this year would be a great start. 500 would be an absolute minimum to bring yourselves up to a great racers level. Prepare as many of them like a race run as possible. How will you fit it in? Hey, I don't care if you ditch every other form of training for the year if you come back and you've done 1000+ full runs.
Parents, go and time the sessions and video the paddling for athletes to review.
Everyone, organize more races. 10 weekends a year would be a start, 15 even better.
If everyone works together on this goal in a big positive push, then I absolutely guarantee we'll be reading less and less blog posts that say "if it wasn't for the mistakes......"
I'm writing this now because it's fresh in my mind, I have the attention of lots of interested parties reading this blog and I truly believe after watching and experiencing these World Champs that they have the potential to reach the top.
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