The top of the course at Bourg St Maurice
20/6/06
Yesterday we drove the 12 hours to Zurich, Switzerland, to pick up James, another C1 paddler from New Zealand. We were greeted in Zurich by Swiss soccer fans of all ages running through the streets, yelling, screaming and blowing horns after there 2,0 win to Togo. We won’t have a chance to go to a game in Germany as the tickets are all sold out but will definitely have to check out some games
Again, it was not until 2am that we arrived at our next training location in eastern France. Bourg St Maurice is a skiing town in a small valley surrounded by gigantic snow covered. It has an amazing course with some grade 4plus rapids. The water is bigger than I remember when I was here 2 years ago for the World Cup final. My heart was pumping at a million miles an hours in my session today as I paddled through the narly stoppers.
We have some exciting days coming up including a beard growing competition between us boys, trying snails at a restaurant (apparently a French delicacy), and celebrating the end of exams. I try and use internet when I can so keep looking at this site every few days for updates.
In between training, Mike and I have been busy studying for exams in the last few days. My first one is today and my second is on Thursday, so fingers crossed I get some good questions.
Yesterday we drove the 12 hours to Zurich, Switzerland, to pick up James, another C1 paddler from New Zealand. We were greeted in Zurich by Swiss soccer fans of all ages running through the streets, yelling, screaming and blowing horns after there 2,0 win to Togo. We won’t have a chance to go to a game in Germany as the tickets are all sold out but will definitely have to check out some games
Again, it was not until 2am that we arrived at our next training location in eastern France. Bourg St Maurice is a skiing town in a small valley surrounded by gigantic snow covered. It has an amazing course with some grade 4plus rapids. The water is bigger than I remember when I was here 2 years ago for the World Cup final. My heart was pumping at a million miles an hours in my session today as I paddled through the narly stoppers.
We have some exciting days coming up including a beard growing competition between us boys, trying snails at a restaurant (apparently a French delicacy), and celebrating the end of exams. I try and use internet when I can so keep looking at this site every few days for updates.
In between training, Mike and I have been busy studying for exams in the last few days. My first one is today and my second is on Thursday, so fingers crossed I get some good questions.
I also forgot to write about last Sunday. Mike and I went to go training on at an artificial training site 40 minutes out of Pau. We turned up to find three of the main Spanish Canoe Clubs getting ready to hold a race, we asked if we could train and they invited us to race instead. This was an awesome experience. Turning up to a new course we had never paddled before and having a race we had not prepared for.
The start list included some Spanish in the national team with 70 competitors overall.
I had a medium sort of first run, a little slow in places, also incurring a 1 second penalty. This left me in 3rd place. I had a much better second run as I became familiar with the course, where I went 2 seconds faster and clean. I ended up a very excited 3rd place, only 2 seconds off 2nd place which means I have improved a lot in the last week. It was amazing how friendly the people were to us who invited us for lunch with the athletes after the race. That was a very cool day.
The start list included some Spanish in the national team with 70 competitors overall.
I had a medium sort of first run, a little slow in places, also incurring a 1 second penalty. This left me in 3rd place. I had a much better second run as I became familiar with the course, where I went 2 seconds faster and clean. I ended up a very excited 3rd place, only 2 seconds off 2nd place which means I have improved a lot in the last week. It was amazing how friendly the people were to us who invited us for lunch with the athletes after the race. That was a very cool day.
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