Finals day, a day of two halves .....

Apologies for no blog at the end of the day yesterday - we had a bit of a nightmare at the end of a successful kayaking day.

Conditions for the mornings semi finals were perfect - the river had dropped a little and as yet it wasn't too hot - however it got hotter and hotter as the day wore on and the kids began to droop a bit. Some of them still haven't figured out the need to remember to take water bottles with them but maybe after yesterday and a few growlings they may remember from now on.

Deahna during the semi finals

Everyone went through from semi finals to finals - despite the managers meeting being told that only 10 would progress they decided after semi finals, and after we had had lunch, that they would put the whole field through with the exception of the C1 U18 field, and they brought the finals start time forward by an hour

- this meant that Tommy missed out on a final and Matthew had a huge lunch and discovered he was to paddle the final ... bit of an odd set of rule changes at the last minute.

Robin

Big crowds were in attendance with the usual smattering of old wrecks in their bras and undies - odd custom - lots of people biking, roller skating and walking as the course is backed by a public sealed river track which goes all the way into the centre of Krakow.

Haylee

 Racing was exciting with the whole of the Polish junior team in competition, and the top Slovakians also competing. The american team were also competing. Racing was tight but saw Luke and Dan gain a bronze in the U16 C2 and Haylee pulled off an amazing run to take silver in U18 K1 with only a small margin  separating her from gold. An excellent performance in a strong field which has knocked the stuffing out of her today. Mens K1 U18 was very competitive and due to the last minute change of rules a couple of the top paddlers who had 50'd in the semis got back into the final - judging was a bit inconsistent at times but no doubt they are all volunteers just like NZ and we were grateful for the opportunity to race. The day and the venue were great and the hotel management looked after us very well.

our medal winners getting organised for the ceremony

Haylee, silver U18w K1

Haylee, silver medal

Dan and Luke, bronze medal, C1 U16

Dan and Luke

Patrick, Finn and Matthew reclaiming the New Zealand flag

Medal winners , Dan, Luke, Haylee and Eve Van Horn from USA

Kristoff(sp?) Polaczyk, Lukasz father, with Finn, Dale and Wendy, 

 Our old friend Lukasz Polaczyk arrived at the course with his dad, to cheer the kiwis on and thank goodness they did because as we were packing the trailer to leave we discovered the frame of it had broken in a very serious place and we couldn't go anywhere with it as it was. The Polaczyk team swung into action and took the trailer away (very slowly) to a friend close by who according to Lukasz was 95 years old and had two heart attacks while he welded the thing back together for us .... meanwhile we had loaded half the boats into the backs of the huge vans ... just in case we needed to leave the trailer behind.

exhausted, waiting for the trailer to be fixed, no dinner for the sickies

 As the day wore on and the kids drooped, we started to have some issues with feeling unwell, sore tummies followed by the vomit  .... they were real troopers and kept competing - by the time we left we had 4 with sick bowls in the black van - thank heavens they all slept almost the entire 3 hour journey to Liptovsky Mikalus - we arrived very late, the U23 were already tucked up and sleeping and we are sorry we woke most of them up as we found our rooms in the most amazingly haphazard Hansel and Gretel renovated barn with stairs which keep going up, twisting and turning and getting narrower and narrower leading into cubbyhole rooms tucked in under the eves - kids off to bed all completely exhausted so day off tomorrow - went up to our room to write the blog - no internet, jumped into the shower, no hot water .... all in all a day of two halves and ups and downs ... and one more sick kid.