Travelling

A very very long trip begining with the south islanders squeezing out of Queenstown just as the snow began and arriving in Auckland just as the huge winds predicted for the North island arrived. We were treated to hail storms and lightening all night and woke to a clear and sunny winters day in Auckland. The north islanders met us at the airport and the loading of the boats with the Emirates staff was smooth and stress free.

The flight Brisbane and on to Dubai was long but we were supplied with great food and endless movies to help those of us who couldnt sleep pass the 20 hours of travelling. Landing in Dubai in the very early morning  saw us all really pleased to get off the plane and stretch. The huge new international transit area at Dubai has the biggest duty free shopping in the world - however two coffees at Starbucks cost Dale nz$17.50 and the paddlers weren't keen to part with any of their spending money. Back on board a new plane - for the 6hr trip through to Munich. This was an A380 and had more room on it than the 777 and once again the Emirate team looked after us brilliantly - so much so that as we arrived in Munich an announcement was made to the entire plane that the NZ junior slalom squad had travelled from NZ with Emirates and they all wished the team the very best of luck. The New Zealand rugby 7's team also on board didnt get a mention and also wished our guys luck.

We were met in Munich by Aaron who whisked off Anna and Malcolm, and Martin and Pavel were parked at the front with two beautiful vans and a trailer courtesy of the Czech rafting team. Boats were loaded and we headed off on the 7hr drive to Solkan in Slovenia. The kids were exhausted but the four countries they passed through on this trip, and the scenery of alps, castles, tunnels, bridges and tiny villages blew them away. Settled into the Hotel Sabotin for well earned showers and sleep. 

Rest of the team departs

Bon voyage and best of luck for a wonderful trip with some great results.

U23 have arrived

The first group of athletes have begun their European tour with the U23s arriving in Munich. (Shaun Higgins, Ella Nicholas and myself - Malcolm Gibson and Anna Higgins will fly with the U18 group and join the Team in a week).  The U18 tour will head off to race some U18 races and then everyone will join together to race the World U23 and U18 Championships as one NZ Team. 

On arrival we met up with Ben picked up the car and headed straight to the Eis Cannel.  Everyone is very excited and happy to swap the cooler temperatures of New Zealand with the warm 35 degrees in Augsburg, Germany.  After eats some real food and a good sleep the team was straight out on the water for their first session. 

Monday 10 June 2013

Only 11 days until the Junior team leave Auckland for Europe. The trip this year heads to Liptovsky in Slovakia for the junior world champs which run from July 17th through until July 21st. The team fly into Munich to be met by Martin and Pavel with vans and a trailer from Prague, and drive down into Slovenia to Solkan for a few days of training followed by competition in the first of the Junior world series races.Our next destination was to have been the Czech Republic but our plans have altered following the terrible flooding in Prague and instead of heading up there we are now booked into accommodation in Ljubljana and training at the course at Tacen. From there we head up to Poland and the city of Krakow to train and compete in the second of the junior world series races. This is followed by a short trip back across the border into Slovakia and our stay at Liptovsky Mikulas for the Junior and U23 world champs. We will be joined by the U23 group at this stage.

Travelling with the team this year are Dale Butcher as manager and Wendy Robertson,

 Martin Hammer, coach, Pavel Foukal, coach,

Athletes

Matthew Arnott

Marcus Norbury

Finn Butcher

Callum Gilbert

Luke Robinson

Daniel Munro

Tommy McDowell

Jess Bailey

Haylee Dangen

Deahna Shearer

Patrick Washer (u23)

Robin Pieper (u23)

Joining in Liptovsky with ...

Aaron Osbourne (coach)

Ben Gibb

Malcolm Gibson

Shaun Higgins

Anna Higgins

Ella Nicholas (Cook Islands)

C1 U23 teams

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.

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.

 This was set up to hold a gate up, reminded us of home ;-)

 Cop showed up to arrest the USA team at our hotel who kept setting off fireworks. Never seen kids run so fast!!

 Endless lines to buy ribs.

 yuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuummmmmmmmmmmm!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 Oh, pretty balloons.

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.

Semi final results

Shaun finished 24th with a little mistake at gate 4, bit low at 9 but the rest was ok.
Finn finished 21st. He had a pretty good run with a few small mistakes but overall went pretty well. Good luck next year when he'll be flying in his final junior year.
Cole had a 98% great run. Sadly he jumped in to gate 12 too tight, hit the gate and got stuck for a bit. Also down at gate 18 he didn't manage to turn in time and lost a bit more time in the eddy. He only missed the finals by 1.5 seconds and finished 15th so proved he has the goods but just couldn't quite get the perfect run today.
Finally Jess came down late in the afternoon. She also had a pretty good run but lost lots of time on the 2 hole moves and had to paddle back for both gates 10 and 22. Jess finished 28th and is looking forward to working on her hole skills when the Hawea park gets built ASAP ;-)

We went and sampled the local 'frozen custard' on the way home. It's like ice cream but way smoother. Very nice, thanks for that pointer Dooglas.

OK, so we have teams racing each afternoon and some finals to watch. Catch you all soon.

Click on the below link and spot Finn Butcher

http://www.waow.com/global/video/flash/popupplayer.asp?ClipID1=7497790&h1=Whitewater%20athletes%20paddle%20into%20semifinals&vt1=v&at1=undefined&d1=38567&LaunchPageAdTag=News&undefined&activePane=info&rnd=49807259

Big day at the river coming up. Semi Finals Day

So, we're about to head in to semi finals day at the U18/U23 World champs.

We have 4 paddlers in the semis. Unfortunately lightning struck twice and we had 2 bubble boys just missing the cut by less than a second and only one position.

After a late night with demo runs and managers reception we'll head down to the course. Each paddler walks the course with me giving advice as they tell me their race plan for every stroke pretty much. They plan their lines in to the gates, how hard they will pull on the strokes and what angle the boat will be at. Add in how much they will lean forward or backwards, repeat this process over 23 gates as well as how they will get through the various holes and waves and it's a very detailed process. It probably takes about 20 minutes to walk the course once, maybe a little more. They then relax for a bit, head up for warm ups, final gear check as they head for the pre start area. Race hard for 2 minutes....then re-assess the post run, watch the team videos that Dale takes and our spare bank paddlers, watch the video from the live feed and if they still have time watch the video from the best paddlers. Then back up to the start for another run.

Today they only get one run in an attempt to make the finals on the weekend. (They will all , except Jess be racing in the 3 man teams event anyway)

So, good luck Shaun, Finn, Cole and Jess....make us proud guys.

Sorry folks, I just realised Shaun went to bed without writing his part in the blog. He had 3 touches on first runs but went faster and hit less on 2nd runs and finished up around 28th. Sorry I don't have more info and need to get to sleep. I'll make sure we fill you in better tomorrow, today was a very long day at the river.