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 )
Jared, Jeremy and Val
Teva Mountain Games
The 6th 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
This entry was posted on Friday, June 22nd, 2007 at 2:31 pm and is filed under Competition Reports.
