As Richard has already said, the weekend saw the third of the Plastic Fantastic Alpkit Kayak Series events of the year, at the Nene White Water Centre. Here’s some more from the event…

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The 29th and 30th saw the Alpkit Challenge which was held at Northampton white water centre, or the Nene to the ones who know.

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This weekend saw the next leg of the alpkit challenge series, it was held on the Tryweryn North Wales.  Not going to say much about it, apart from it was a good weekend. Jamie finished second in C1 and i finished 8th in the mens K1.

Next event will be held at the Northampton white water centre, 29th-30th September.

Freestyle Euro Cup Final in Galicia, Spain. The last of three events, one in Austria and the other one in Sweden.

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The Spanish Freestyle Championship was celebrated in Sort last weekend (14/15 of july).

The Worlds in 2001 and the European Champs in 2004 were celebrated there as well, however the spot is different every year because it is destroyed every spring with high river levels.

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Since our last post, we have spent the past month kayaking in Colorado.

Big East Falls aka.”Stupid Falls”

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Team Pyranha in Colorado

…after demonstrating great skills at the Freestyle World Championship in Canada where Ben White (UK) and Valerie Bertrand (Canada) took the gold in squirt and Jeremy Lauks (USA) took the bronze in OC1, our team was hitting the road hoping to showcase our plastic boat just as well… off to Colorado.  Paddling Life Pro-InvitationalThe Pro-Invitational has become an annual challenge where the best paddlers from each boat company are invited to defeat each other in creeking and freestyle. Steamboat Colorado has the area to make it happen; with Paddling Life as organiser (amongst other sponsors) and a wicked crew of local paddlers whiling to share their time. The day started with a downriver race on the Fish creek: a little stretch of small technical rapids, from a clean 8 foot boof to a lower head dam about 1km downstream. After a quick lunch, all paddlers were brought to the town wave for a good old style freestyle competition based on variety and style on scales of 1 to 10… Our team had 4 members at the event: Valerie took a respectful overall 4 ^th position as our guys Jared, Jeremy and Connor were holding on quite well with the top 15 men. (www.pladdlinglife.com )

Teva Mountain Games

The 6^th annual event in Vail Colorado was again a huge success, with many hundred international athletes competing in various disciplines such as biking, running, climbing (…) and of course paddling. The 5 day paddling competition included 2 boatercross races, a steep creek race and a rodeo. Again, Team Pyranha did a wicked job keeping up with many well known international paddlers. After high placings in the men steep creek race, our boys Jared, Dave and Jeremy put on an impressive show for the crowd in town and making the 4-20 look like a sky high looping machine! Josh Bechtel also did a wicked job on both boatercross races; with a no fear look on his face and strong pace through the courses. On the women sides, Shannon Carrol also took the podium in a boatercross race and finished high in the steep creek race. Valerie kept up really good until a misfortunate crash in finals on the steep creek made her bump into a none of the less 5 ^th place, allowing team paddler Katie Hilleke to take place on the podium. Katie, who’s recent battle against cancer brought her out on tour this summer and already she is doing incredibly well; your strength is a huge motivation for the team. Go girl J !!  www.tevamountaingames.com 

    Josh and Dave, Shannon

Val

With plenty of sunshine - quite untypical for Lofer - and a nice water level, the second Extreme Race in Lofer, Austria took part last weekend. Spontaneously I decided to go there and was quite surprised, when I realized that I was the only girl competing. There was a single race for qualification first, followed by the boatercross. As I was faster than some of the boys, I competed in the boatercross. I must admit it is a little bit strange to compete against men, but still lots of fun.

Anna in the Teufelsschlucht - Picture: Timo Köster

After years of the Peak UK Challenge series Pete Astles has decided to take a break. Step up Jim from Alpkit and a slightly changed format and you get the Plastic Fantastic Alpkit Kayak Series. Round 1 was at the River Washburn in the UK and with a Boater X, Alpjam, Freestyle and a Pyranha Speeder Race, you were guaranteed a great event!!

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Parties, power-drives and pioneering. Making the most of our time on the road and glad to be sitting still for a little while.

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Three days of competition not just in kayak, but as well in other sports like mountain running, downhill biking and bouldering and a big party made this years TEVA Extreme Mountain Games to a really entertaining event. Friday morning it started out with a team race on the Egua followed by an individual downriver race. Due to the low water levels the slalom, downriver race and the kayak cross on Saturday and Sunday all took place on the Sorba. Apart from the team race I competed in all other races an took 3rd in the overall score. For a more detailed description see http://playak.com/article.php?sid=1265.

Anna on the Sorba - Picture: Timo Köster

This drop is the first on Canyon Creek in the Oregon Cup. I took 4th in the Extreme Race. Josh Bectel took Second in Extreme and 1st in the boatercross to give him the overall win. I had to miss out on the boatercross so I had no overall ranking. Fun event hopefully more people will come out next year.

Quebec,

A province known for it’s beautiful women, it’s good food (poutine being one of the main food groups around here!) and it’s great whitewater…

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BoaterCross Race

Loopin the 4Twenty

Headed down to the Collegiate National Championships in Reno this weekend. Ended up making it to the semi-finals in the boatercross, it was a physical event with people taking paddles to the face quite a bit. Luckily no one got seriously injured. Levels were a bit low for the play spot I ended up one spot out of the final rounds. Won some money in the casino and had a good time for sure. Looking forward to the Reno River Fest in a couple of weeks.

After much debate as to whether the event was going to be on or not, finally the time came for the Hurley Classic. A mixture of gates, some amusing classes and some good friends made for a great event.

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Never mind the Green Race, everyone knows that Ireland’s Big Boat Bonanza was the place to be last weekend…well for the party at least. A strong Team Pyranha contingent made their way to the bone dry Wicklow Mountains for yet another weekend of Guinness and carnage. Alan Ellard, Liz Bell, Bob Campbell, Ally Collett, Loz Brown, Deb Cook, Bob Marchant and Richard Brooks made the journey from the UK, meeting up with long time team pyranha members Kipper Maguire and Ali Donald.

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I was stoked to see so many Pyranha team members out there racing and see so many Burns tearing it up! The Green Race was a huge success this year with a record breaking 126 racers!
We are very lucky to have such a perfect river to have an event—classic class V rapids, no portages, reliable water, and access for those who want to watch the action.

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Some good results all round for Team Pyranha at the British Freestyle Team Selection events for the worlds in Canada in 2007. Read on for a full report…

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Just got back from the Moose Festival weekend.  I’m actually writing this as most people are still driving back from the Moose Fest.   It was a solid weekend, starting with a great party on friday, followed by a sweet race, then another party pn saturday, and finally some more good boating on Sunday.  The Race Results and more pictures are posted inside. 

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