Brawling in Bosnia – World Cups 1,2&3

It was an early start for a dawn flight. We were bound for Zagreb where the ever inconspicuous British buses would scoop us up in the searing Croatian heat and carry us forth to Banja Luka, Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The busses had spent the past week at the Junior and U23 World Championships in Solkan, where the British Team had enjoyed just a modicum of success. The Christies retained their title in U23 C2 winning both the sprint and the classic, and Kerry picked up a silver in the K1 Classic. With Freya Pryce the sisters picked up another Gold in the U23 WK1 Classic team, then with Elsie Landsborough they snagged a silver in the U23 C1 classic team. Not to let the Christies have all the medals Elsie went on to win another silver with her C2 partner Ciara Maloney in the sprint. All the aforementioned girls then teamed up together with Sophie Cameron to pick up yet another silver, in what I believe was the first ever women’s C2 team race – a testament to how the sport is growing and developing.

However it was the junior boys team result that I was perhaps most pleased by. Going into this year we knew the Stevelys were going strong, but two does not make a team. So enter Malaki Grant. Malaki, a strong K1 paddler, had never been in a river racer prior to the winter but we put him on a crash course, with a focus on sitting on washes. The gamble paid off. The boys came in 3rd with Sam and Will helping to knock nearly 2 minutes of Malaki’s individual time. A Bonze medal.

Back home, We’d seen the press releases and Instagram posts, but as the busses carried us forth to Banja Luka we got to hear the inside scoops. The gossip, the drama, the little misadventures missed by the ‘slightly’ sanitized PUK articles. As we crossed the border into Bosnia, we were riding high on their success and exited for what the week ahead would bring.

Banja Luka is renowned for the Krupa Canyon section. This section of the Vrbas river cuts a spectacular gorge through the hills outside the city. It’s hosted numerous international competitions and this renowned course, would not be the section were going to race.

We would instead be racing on the much flatter section of the Vrbas that runs directly through the city. Apparently, there was some sort of issue with the road access on the canyon but we were all having flashbacks to last years race in Veles (which was extremely flat). As a general rule of thumb, I think that if you can paddle something in a marathon boat, then it probably should be paddled in a marathon boat. River racers are for the properly bumpy bits.

Yet after a first lap on the river we were relived to find there were at least some bumpy bits and a few swirly areas to boot. In fact in places the river almost felt weirdly British, if you ignored the lush blue water and hot weather. Needless to say it was still a bit of a gear shift from Mezzana but it seemed like they’d be enough rough for an interesting race, particularly for the mass start – the event that had drawn me to this set of world cups.

Bosnia is an, “exciting” country. To put it politely, the politics are… complex, however all the people we met were extremely warm and welcoming to us. And, extremely understanding when Alex and I realised we didn’t have any cash for our coffee – we did eventually pay. Just after a short side quest to find an ATM that wouldn’t swallow our cards.

As a general rule of thumb the further east you get in Europe the ‘looser’ things get. I mean that both in metaphorical sense and with regards to the taps in our accommodation.
Bosnia’s building regulations are second only to North Macedonia, with our accommodation featuring the presumably mandatory sprinkling of exposed wiring that gives life here that extra little spark. But while this attitude of lax building regulations would send a shock down many a Brit’s spine, it also comes with an air of freedom. During an afternoon ‘tourist-ing’ around the city we found ourselves free to roam the walls of the ‘Kastel Fortress’, despite the star-wars-esque approach to railings (i.e. None – something that would be unthinkable in the UK). It is nice, to be in a place where the powers that be trust you to not to merk yourself at every available opportunity. Or at least accept that if you do, it was your own damn fault.

Of course the quirks with our accommodation didn’t end with the exposed wiring. Us boys were situated up in an attic apartment which had been recently redecorated. No expense had been spared on the fixtures, but clearly the fitting had been a slight afterthought. A large luxurious sink in the bathroom, now obstructed the door from opening forcing any would be loo-user to awkwardly shimmy through the skinny gap that remained. Meanwhile the kitchen sink was tucked so far under the rafters, that it required a Quasimodo impersonation any time you wanted a drink. And whoever had installed it had clearly given up before connecting the overflow. Alex best summed up the accommodation, exclaiming “Its like staying in a Turkish Barbers”. There were even glimmers of sunlight around the edge of the hole, the aircon unit had been thrust into. However, we were grateful for the unit. It was over 30 degrees outside, but mercifully that overworked unit kept our room at a cool 17 – cold enough to give me the shivers at night.

Still it managed to rank as one of the better places, we’ve stayed. Having a bakery on the ground floor was wonderous. Leon alone must have spent a fortune there with his new found penchant for their ‘cheesy bread pastry thing’ (Pita Zeljanica?)

Not being particularly complicated, we more or less had the river down in the first couple of days. That gave use Wednesday as a rest day, before the onslaught of racing scheduled for the Thursday, Friday and Saturday. And what to a bunch of canoeists do on a rest day? Go canoeing of course!

While we weren’t racing on the Vrbas Canyon Section this year, next year it will host the World Championships. To us it seemed very rude not to go give it a little scout while we were in the area! The rest day meant a leisurely morning departure heading south from Banja Luka into the hills. The glaring sun that had defined most of our practice days had been usurped in the night by a thunderstorm. Now we were greeted with drizzle, coating the mountains in atmospheric mist.

As the canyon enveloped us the river narrowed giving rise to playful rapids mixing waves and boils as the rock walls further encroached. Then came the horizon line. The start of the sprint course. Suddenly the river dropped, only to rise again in peaking and crashing waves. We took a moment to eddy out and watch everyone through the grand rapid. Then it was playtime. We took it in turns to cross the mighty haystacks, and taunt the crashing waves. River racers are not the easiest of boats to surf, but they are a lot of fun!

Once we had had our fill, we continued on down the second half of the sprint. Another steep section, more waves and then cutting it close to the house sized boulder at the bottom. it was pure joy! From here the river calmed returning back to playful rapids and boils until these too faded as the canyon released us from it’s grasp.

That day we exchanged stories of our extremely restful activity over lunch as Leon devoured yet another cheesy bread.
“Any requests for this afternoon?” asked Jamie.
“Could we go again?” replied Eddie. We all burst into laughter.
“Your supposed to be resting”
“I know, I just love canoeing”.
I think we’re all excited to paddle again here next year, but sensibility prevailed and instead we took the opportunity to do a little ‘tourist-ing’ around the city.

Classic Day arrived, and with it the Sun and the heat returned. It had all the makings of a suffer-fest. As we waited for our starts we sheltered from the Sun in the bus. Despite the odd joke the focus amongst the team was strong. So strong, that Eddie managed to walk into a giant metal chariot, that he somehow didn’t see. We waved the girls off for their runs, and eventually it was time for us to race too.

The sun was hot, but mercifully the water was cool. No kags today, just a spray deck and the lightest top I could find. I was boat 99, chasing down previous European Champion Maxence Barouh. I’d joked with Leon earlier about how I was going to catch him – though truth be told I was more relived he wouldn’t have the chance to catch me! My race went okay – I tried hard and there wasn’t any drama, but something seemed to be missing from my form. I finished 23rd, a respectable time, but not one I’m particularly proud of. Unfortunately I didn’t quite catch Maxence who eneded up in 3rd.

However, any disappointment in my classic result was soon forgotten as Freddie crossed the line. Freddie had decided that today was the day to trial his new nutrition strategy: bicarbonate of soda. Any athlete will tell you that race day is always the best day to try something new. For those not keyed up on the science, sodium bicarbonate (aka baking soda) is an alkali, which means it can help neutralise lactic acid that builds up in your muscles. However, the side effect of bicarb can include bloating and nausea, which isn’t too surprising given bicarbonate of soda is what you put in those kids volcanoes!

Freddie crossed the line in visible discomfort – which to be fair, is pretty common for a classic. Yet, this looked to be quite an extreme and different discomfort to normal. He claimed he’d been fine during the race but a few moment after finishing he began doing his best volcano impression – much to our amusement. Everyone in the British camp had predicted this exact outcome, and to see it manifested like the fountains of Versailles brought tears to our eyes.

Those, not in the British team were less amused. In fact they looked quite concerned. Probably because in his wisdom Freddie had washed the bicarb down with a healthy amount of beetroot juice. Said beetroot juice was now colouring everything a dark red, making the whole scene look pretty macabre to the casual observer. We tried to reassure everyone, through breaks in our laughter, that Freddie was okay and was definitely not dying. Tjaš, from Slovenia, remarked that this is how he wanted to finish every race as he watched the scene unfold. Freddie quipped back “yeah, but you wouldn’t do this just to get a WK1 time” before expelling more beetroot juice from his body.

Kerry took a bronze in the WK1 and then the a Silver with Emma in the WC2. Freddie decided not to bicarb the following days.

The following day was sprint day. We’d taken great care to rest up the previous evening in the manner that all great athletes do – lounging on the sofa, marathoning the Shrek films.

The sprint course through the centre of Banja Luka was very reminiscent of the course in Veles: Flat. There was lot of flat. A long old flat section, before dropping into a few waves and powering through to the finish. The waves were a bit bigger than Veles, and it was certainly possible to get them wrong. Something that wouldn’t be too difficult after absolutely burying yourself on the initial flat pool. Though arguable the hardest aspect of the course was narrowly avoiding a hidden reef just off the start, and then making sure you lined up correctly over the horizon line before the waves. However after a few days of practice we were feeling pretty confident, and hopes in the team were high for for a final given the similarities to Veles.

In Wildwater Sprints there are two heats, followed by finals. In the first heat, the first five paddlers qualify for the finals. Then, everyone who didn’t qualify in the first heat races in the second and the first ten paddlers from the second heat qualify for the final. The final is a one and done type affair, and everyone who didn’t qualify for it is ranked by the time from their 2nd run. This means that unless you make it through in those first 5 qualifiers (which I am extremely unlikely to do), the first run is just a practice. Everything is all on the second run.

Personally, I don’t think that makes a great format. But I’ll be damned if I don’t exploit it for my own ends! My race plan was simple: chill out a bit on the first run, – I mean still try, but not the full 110%, just treat it as a practice. Then, smash it on the 2nd.

I finished my first run with a time of 51.87s. All the way down in 46th place, over 7 seconds off 1st. But that didn’t matter, it was part of the plan. And I had rehearsed the important things. Not just the line and locking onto the water with powerful strokes, but also the warm up, getting changed, faffing about and all those little parts that add up to make the race routine.

Then the day got a little chaotic. With heats and finals all on the same day, the schedule was packed. It kept changing up until that morning as the organises shuffled the different classes around. We should have had an hour or two between runs, just enough to have a little nibble of lunch and rest, but as 2nd runs drew near we still didn’t have a start list. Then came word that we’d keep bib order, 10 minutes later we were going on heat 1 timed (a difference of nearly 30mins for myself!). Then the girls started their 2nd heat – in bib order? Needless to say the confusion didn’t make the race prep any easier.

I got on, leaving myself plenty of time to spare. A slightly extended warm up then slotted into my place in the queue. Go time. The only thought in my head was “pick it up, pick it up”. Based off the first run, to qualify for finals I had to knock 5 seconds off my time. To do that I’d have to bleed out my eyeballs before I got to the horizon line. Bleed I did. Somewhere in the midst of the race I faintly heard our coach Billy screaming “Up! Up! Up!”. Time to dig even deeper, 110%. I don’t really remember the rapid, it was pure-auto pilot, but I knew it felt smooth as I poured everything into the last few strokes to over the line. 47.72 seconds. A colossal improvement of 4.15 seconds. But not quite enough. In the end I came 22nd, 2nd fastest Brit – just two hundredths of a second behind Alex. But neither of use were through to the finals.

We gathered along the banks to cheer on Kerry and the C2s. Kerry had managed to qualify for her final in the 1st heat and put in an incredible run to finish joint 4th, 0.2 seconds off the medal. She’s yet to achieve a K1 sprint podium, but it feels like it’s on its way. The C2 was another matter though, with Kerry and Emma securing another silver to match their result in the classic. Amongst the boys there was a little disappointment that none of us made it to finals. We take a lot of pride in the girls’ success, but we’re hungry to replicate it – difficult though that may be. But, as I watched back my Sprint with Billy on his phone I couldn’t hide a smile. It was one of my best sprint results to date, and for that I was proud of it.

The third and final day of racing brought the Mass Start Classic. River racing usually operates on a time trial format which gives everyone a fair race. In contrast, mass starts are chaotic carnage, but that is exactly what make them so much fun. We normally run a few in the UK throughout the year, but rarely (if ever) do we get such a stacked start line.

Any start procedure on a moving river is destined to be a little troublesome. We were instructed to line up behind a rope which would be raised on ‘GO!’, but with flow nothing is that simple. Any attempt to push or jump the start would lead to disqualification. The line was tight with over 50 boats crammed across the river. I’d been planning to sort of sneak in at the last moment and find a gap between some faster boats in the hope they’d pull me clear from the impending melee. However the plan began to go awry as my ‘last moment’ extended into minutes and the gaps came and went as everyone jostled for position. The tension was building, the pressure was on, and the start line felt like a powder keg ready to…

“GO!”

The air exploded with water and whirling blades. I guffed my first stroke. I’d been busy trying to reposition myself on the other side of Lean Bogaerts (111, BEL) but it was to late – I was now in the brawl for positions. Ahead of me Tristan Meersman (72, BEL) and Ilija Kleut (76, SRB) collided, screaming across the river, but fortunately the wash carried my bow over the two paddlers and I tried to power round the side. Ilija came back quick though, now on my right but then someone (Tristian maybe?) clipped my stern spinning me into the Serbian forcing us and a few other unfortunate competitors into the the shallows of the first rapid.

(In retrospect I probably should have backed off and tried to go around Ilija, but isn’t that just the power of hindsight.)

It felt like we were stuck in the shallows for an eternity, watching the whole field come past. The carnage continued as we tried to re-join the flow on the first rapid. Swaths of boats continued to pass, nearly forcing us back into the slow and stagnant parts of the river, but fortunately I was able to bounce my bow over some of the mess and back into the narrow conveyor belt of water.

I’d been seeing red since the collision. The frustration had given me a little extra oomph to claw myself back into the race, but as the everyone strung out I began to realise I’d over cooked it a little. I still had some good fight left in me, putting in burns here and there to defend lines but climbing over the wash was becoming a struggle and after the sprint course I hit a wall.

From here it was roughly 2km of flat and once again, to my dismay, the positions started slipping away. Maybe the biggest insult was watching Luca Barone (107, FRA), a self confessed sprinter pull past. It wasn’t a slight I was going to take lying down. I took a brief moment to recover, trying to bring my heart rate down a little, and breath a little bit of life back into my muscles. Then it was time to turn and burn.

I slipped past Aljosa Travar (86, BIH) but it wasn’t exactly a sprint to the finish. My arms felt like concrete, and my lungs where on fire, but I dug deep and paddled as hard as I could. The last the last two minutes of the race seemed to stretch out for an agonising eternity, but slowly and surely I was clawing Luca back in. As we came in towards the line we were level pegging. With my vision beginning to black out and on the verge of cardiac arrest I found one last ounce of power to just inch ahead.

It was a small victory, but a valuable one. Aljosa let out an almighty scream as he crossed the finish it’d been a hard fought race, but an enjoyable one. The smiles around the finish line were testament to that. Everyone gathered to swap stories of one eventful race. As we got off the water for the last time the mood was clear, we want more of these races.

There was however one small oopsie. Somewhere in the scrum off the start I broke my right paddle blade. I’d heard it crunch in the first few strokes and to be honest, I was just grateful I still had a blade at the end. I don’t think I even hit it on anything, but lets be honest river racing blades do not live an abuse free life. So on the off chance, you fancy donating to the ‘Nick’s new paddle fund‘ it wouldn’t go unappreciated.

Finally it was time to pack up, prize giving and home. The Christies’ collected their medals – this time including Jamie who’d won the masters mass start race (Billy also came a close second). We set off for the long journey back to the UK still buzzing from our races.

Dream work makes the team work!

We first came to Sabero three years ago for the 2021 European championships. At the time just making it there had felt like an achievement. Looking back now, it is crazy to see how far we have all come…

I didn’t make the cut this year for Worlds in K1. I wrote a little about it at the time here. It’s a testament to the increasing standards in the UK, but it also sucked. Fortunately there is a tried and tested strategy for failed kayakers: getting in a canoe.

The canoe has been a long overlooked discipline in the UK, at least within Wildwater. But, thanks to a push from Nicky Cresser, it has started to gain some traction, with the women even seeing just a little bit of success! Us men however, had done our utmost to steer clear of the one bladed witchery. But with a swathe of us missing out on the K1 selection this year, the canoe categories were suddenly our last hope for a holiday in the sun.

Queue the world’s most frantic training montage as, in a matter of a few weeks, I went from wobbling and unable to keep a C1 in a straight line, to just about getting the boat to where I wanted it be and finding a modicum of power. Those early weeks in the canoe were a lot of fun as I leapt up the learning curve. And as the second round ‘canoe selection’ event neared I almost felt confident.

What confidence I did have, had been misplaced. While I finished first out of the non-canoe canoe paddlers at the event, I still didn’t meet the minimum time required by the performance criteria. The minimum performance criteria exist to prevent the UK from sending absolute muppets to World Championships, but with mere weeks under my belt in C1, it appeared that I was still a muppet.

Luckily I hadn’t put all my eggs in the same boat. With a little encouragement from Nicky, Freddie and myself had decided to also enter in C2. Here it seemed our inexperience managed to balance itself out on each side of the boat, leaving nothing but power! – or at least that’s what I told myself. Afterall, false hope is better than no hope. Mercifully we were able to put in some solid-ish races and secured our holiday to the World Champs in Sabero, Spain.

My trip to Sabero started in the traditional fashion. A complex string of planes, trains and buses to transport myself from a wedding in the middle of nowhere to a competition in a different middle of nowhere (this time in Spain). The journey time just scraped under the 20 hour mark, most of which was spent attempting to sleep on whatever seat or floor I could find. But as always it was worth it and I arrived at the team accommodation just in time to find everyone tucking in for our favorite dinner: pasta and shite.

The rest of the team had arrived a few days earlier and that evening we settled down to watch some of the GoPro footage they’d taken and revise lines for the classic. Not that I had to remember that much as I’d be in the rear of our C2 staring at the back of Freddie’s head.

The lines were mostly as I remembered; a mix of wave trains and flat swirly pools. The key, as always, was remembering which corners could be cut and by how much while hunting down all the little flow ladders that could carry the boat speed.

Towards the end of the classic and nearing the start of the sprint was one particularly tricky little rapid where the river fell diagonally off a weir-like ledge. It was a chaotic mix of boiling pools and shallow little ladders which led to a heated debate over the fastest line through the mess. Eventually the consensus settled on staying high over the pool and dropping into the choss towards the end of the weir, but Jamie was quick to add “if you find yourself getting sucked off, just go with it”. I’m 90 percent sure he was talking about the weir but there was no way we weren’t going to mercilessly rip that phase out of context! On the plus side, at least everyone would remember that section.

We’d taken three MC2s out to Sabero, a full team, and the first time we’d had a full MC2 team in recent memory. Out of the three MC2 crews Freddie and I were the most inexperienced. Rob and Jacob had paddled (albeit briefly) together at Treignac and had flirted with C2 a few times since then, while Andrew and Phil had put in at least one solid weekend training together at Stanley. Meanwhile Freddie and I had paddled together at selection. Thus our few days of training before the competition were mostly spent learning how to paddle the boat together.

The C2 is an absolute battleship of a boat. They carry a lot of momentum and once the boat starts tracking off line it can be very difficult to correct it. Jamie says there is a dark art to C2 paddling, and he is right. Between the two of you you must be in agreement about where the boat is going, which edges are needed and maintain stroke timing. The best crews do this almost instinctively. Freddie and I were not quite at that level but over our two days training we managed to mostly coordinate our edges, with cries of ‘left’, ‘right’ and ‘up’ to differentiate our edges from wobbles in the tricker sections.

Arguably the biggest challenge was not getting the boat to run but rather the seating position. Whereas in Kayaks you get a nice comfy seat to sit on, in canoes you kneel. As anyone who’s been in a canoe for more than five minutes can attest to, this can be more than just a little uncomfortable. Even with my regular attendance at NKC’s Canoe Thursdays, I’d finish a classic with dead legs unable to walk. Meanwhile Freddie, not used to spending so much time on his knees, was really suffering. In an attempt to relieve some of the pressure on his legs, Freddie attempted to raise his seat a little, but misguided over where he was perched on the seat, he only succeeded in building himself a little ‘ball plinth’. Eventually through plenty of boat time and some strategic yoga we got ourselves into a state where we would at least survive the classic.

Once the final day of training was over it was time for the opening ceremony. As our accommodation was a good 50 minute drive from the river and the ceremony, we’d elected to hang around after our final afternoon training session and enjoy a picnic in the hot Spanish weather. However, someone clearly forgot to inform the weather of our plan. Instead it had decided to piss it down. Fortunately we’re the British Team and while the weather could dampen our sandwiches it couldn’t dampen our spirits! As the other teams arrived we all huddled under what shelter we could find, enduring their many jokes on how we’d brought the rain. Eventually though there was a break in the weather and after a few speeches in Spanish were loosely translated into English the ICF anthem played and we were all off to bed – only slightly soaked.

Race day started leisurely for the C2 crews. We weren’t racing until 14:00 and as such we relished a rare lie in. Made all the sweeter by the fact the K1s and C1s were forced to depart at the crack of dawn. We caught up with the rest of the team over lunch at the finish. Classic day had already yielded some great results, PBs for many of the team and a silver for Kerry. The first British medal at a senior world championships since 2016. The pressure was on for our C2s!

We should take a second to talk about the MC2 class. It is a class that has been dominated by the French and Czechs for as long as anyone can remember. Maybe one day we’ll be able to challenge them again, but for now they are well out of reach, already locking up the first 7 places between them. Making up the rest of the start line was a swiss boat, the Germans, Croatians, Italians and of course the good old US of A. For us the aim of the game here was just to be the best of the rest.

We set off on our run. The previous day Jamie had followed us down carefully coaching our edges which we put into good practice. The course seemed to flow well and we had a rather successful ‘sucking off’ section before dropping into the sprint course and screaming across the finish line.

We crossed the line into 3rd place just behind the other 2 British boats, but inevitably we wouldn’t hold those positions. As the other boats finished, we were steadily bumped down the standing, eventually finishing in 11th, 12th and 13th. Behind the French and Czechs, the Germans had slotted in, tailed by a Spanish and a Swiss crew. It was a reasonable result for three new crews, but excitingly as we counted back up the results list it put us as the 3rd fastest team. Could we scrape a medal in tomorrow’s team race? If we could it would be the first time any of us had stood on a podium. Theoretically the next fastest crew was the Spanish and we had 20 seconds on their slowest boat. It almost seemed too good to be true and yet it was so tantalizingly close.

Of course, the girls had already shown us up, with Kerry and Emma taking the gold in the WC2 race.

Team racing is hard. The first boat across the start line sets the clock ticking and the last boat across the finish stops it. The aim is to use each others washes to help pull everyone along, but anyone who’s tried to wash hang in a river racer will tell you that it’s no easy feat. Trying to do it on the rough is even harder. Trying to wash hang on the rough in a C2 is near impossible.

We left the accommodation early the next day to get in a sneaky practice run for the team race, although we quickly discovered we weren’t the only ones with that idea. We tried a few different combinations for the order and played around with the start a bit finally concludeding that we’d send me and Freddy down first followed by Andrew and Phil with Rob and Jacob taking up the rear. “1%” said Phil, “that’s all you and Freddie need to beat the fastest Spanish crew. 1% faster and we could do it”.

“12 down!” that was the split we got from Nicky at the half way bridge. We’d already been racing hard and it was not the split we wanted to hear. Freddie and I were trying are damnedest to find our 1% and yet we were already 12 seconds down on the fastest boat ahead of us. Freddie and I grit our teeth and tried to dig a little deeper. The other two crews trying to hold on.

With muscles screaming we crossed the finish line. “Segundo para Gran Bretaña”. My Spanish isn’t great but it’s good enough to translate that. 2nd. Not good enough. The French and the Czechs were still on the course and they would inevitably slip into 1st and 2nd bumping us down into 4th and off the podium. Had it been too much to dream that a team of fairly inexperienced C2s could steal a medal at the world champs? Probably.

But upon inspecting the results we realised we couldn’t be too disappointed. We had beaten the Spanish (our main rivals) and we had improved upon mine and Freddie’s time from the previous day. But it was the Germans who snuck into 3rd place. A couple of their boats hadn’t raced the classic yesterday and so they hadn’t factored into our team race calculations. They beat us by a healthy margin too, about 30 seconds. There was experience in their boats and it showed.

Any sorrow was short lived and we patted ourselves on the back, a good result and a job well done. Onto the celebrations Billy Blackman and Jamie had collected Bronze in the over 35 C2 and Billy had won the Over 55 race, to claim his first gold! – Proving there was still hope for us yet. Tina and Mags also bagged some more bling in the senior ladies while Laura, Chloe and Kerry picked up a surprise Bronze in the WC1 team and Kerry collected her Silver from the other day as we baked in the Spanish sun through the prize giving.

We celebrated over dinner. “This is already the most successful world championships I can remember” said Jamie, “and we’ve still got the sprints to go!”. Kerry thanked everyone to a thunderous amount of applause. “These medals, and these results are a team effort. They’re thanks to all pushing each other on all the training camps and early mornings”.

“Ignore the medals, ignore the positions. If you look at the times everyone is closer to the winners than the last time we were here. We are all on a good trajectory” said Nicky. “Success breeds success”.

Success does breed success. But I’d argue the thing that grows and sustains success is a positive and supportive culture. Building this culture within the team might be Nicky and Jamie’s greatest achievement. The day before racing Nicky set a challenge to the team: everyone had to write down an anonymous compliment for everyone else on the team. These were compiled into envelopes and distributed out to everyone. It was a joy reading of my classic ‘prowess’ vs Freddie’s power on the sprint. These messages went a long way for the less confident members of the team and gave everyone a boost before racing.

The sprints didn’t bless us with the gentle start of the previous days. Instead the whole team was up early to sneak in an extra couple of practice runs. Freddie was feeling pretty broken from two days of classic racing so we kept it short and sweet, confident that if we could replicate our lines in the race we’d nab a pretty reasonable time. So we set up camp to cheer on the team and rest up for our race.

As soon as the buzzer went Freddie found an extra gear, leaving me struggling to keep up with the rate. Not looking entirely dissimilar to an epileptic spider we crashed through the first few drops but then in the waves we lost an edge. We managed to prevent the boat from swinging wildly off line but we bled a lot of speed and crossed the line eager to improve.

For the second run I felt more prepared. I now knew Freddie would find a feverish stroke rate and was prepared to match it. We came down the first couple of drops nice and smooth and kept everything together through the waves and swirls. It felt near perfect – at least up until the last bend. We must have gotten the angle ever so slightly wrong down the penultimate drop as we found ourselves careening into the wall. We’d flirted dangerously close a couple of times, but this time we smashed into it at full speed. Freddie doubled over on the impact while I ripped out the straps holding me in place, flying forwards and nearly joining Freddie in the front of the boat!

Obviously this wasn’t the result we were hoping for, it was a disappointing end to our debut in C2, but there was still hope, could we redeem ourselves in the C2 team sprint the following day?

MK1 Team (featuring a ‘mounting’)

We sat on the start line. We’d had a few good practice runs as a team, but executing the plan in the race is always a challenge. After the disappointment of the team classic I don’t think anyone dared dream too big, but then from the top of the course we could here the commentator: “Primero para España”! At that moment my heart skipped a beat. We knew we could beat the Spanish, and after us was only the Czechs and the French. Could we do it could we steal a medal. “No, focus” I thought, “just do the job at hand”.

As soon as the buzzer went it was a blur. We peeled out of the eddy in close formation. Nose to tail we made it through the first drop, then the second. Still together. Shoulders screamed as we tore through the wave train then at the last crux it seemed like we would almost loose it, but we held on. We crossed the line in close succession, Andrew and Phil cutting a heroic line across the finish and into the eddy.

“Primero para Gran Bretaña”. There was a moment of stunned silence as we glanced at each other. We’d done it. A guaranteed 3rd place, our first international medals. The Czechs and French crossed the line into 2nd and 1st, but we were already celebrating. Water was thrown into the air as we were joined in the water hugging and cheering.

What followed was a blur of congratulations, celebrations and at least a couple of beers. It was a struggle fitting everyone onto the podium to but we just about managed it. The celebrations continued on the bus ride back to the accommodation (featuring a rousing rendition of the kings of Leon song – ‘This C2 is on fire’) and well into the night upon our return.

We’d just about recovered by the time we disembarked the ferry back to the UK.

“Anything to declare?”

“Just all these medals!”

It’s now been a short while since we got back, and honestly it’s taken a while to process everything and come down off Cloud 9. As always there was so much I had to leave out, Huw’s 18th, Jacob leaving his paddles on the wrong bus, Lucy’s broken thigh bars, teaching the Estonians to paddle C2 and so much more. These write ups are done so heavily from my point of view but it is incredible to see the progress the whole team has made.

On the ferry home I overheard Jamie chatting to Ciara & Elise, our upcoming Junior C2 boat. He asked them “How good do you want to be?”. Success begets success because it allows you to believe that success is possible. It would seem it is dream work that makes the team work.

Happy Tears Are Good Tears: World Cups 1&2 Macedonia 2024

The British team for the world cups 1&2 consisted of Kerry and Emma Christie in WC2 and WK1. Competing in MK1 were Alex Sheppy, Freddie Brown and (yours truly) Nick Boreham. Andrew (the Crow) Crowhurst raced MC1. Billy Blackman along with Helen and Jamie Christie made up the coaching and support ~~staff~~ volunteers.

The sun had already set when we emerged from Skopje airport. A heat wave over the southern Balkans had brought the daytime temperature up to 40⁰ in North Macedonia, and in the evenings it showed little sign of abating.

There, in the car park to meet us was the inconspicuous blue bus, subtly plastered with large Union Jacks on every available surface. The bus and trailer had once again made the long journey all the way from the UK, this time bravely piloted by a crew of Helen, Jamie and Billy. As they greeted us they carried a warning: It was only going to get hotter, and that we would be sleeping in a 5 star gulag.

This year’s world cup races would be held in Veles, just a short hours drive from Skopje the host of last year’s European Champs. Our ‘gulag’ was buried somewhere within the centre of the city. In truth we were not staying in a gulag but rather a local boarding school. But, between the squat bogs, concrete communist architecture and rows of beds, to untrained eyes the differences were somewhat negligible. The school was kindly playing host to us, the Australians and the Serbians. The other teams however, had turned down the offer.

We awoke in the morning, sweaty, from something resembling sleep and departed for the river. Through Veles the Vadar River is quite flat. So flat that both Sheppy and Freddie opted to paddle without a deck. The flat course had drawn a little bit of flack from the international community, questioning how ‘wild’ the racing would really be. But, to Veles’ credit, by the time we finished our second run a digger had appeared in the river near the finish. As we paddled past it was busy constructing a rapid. By competition time this, combined with some well timed releases from Matka produced some reasonable waves to race on.

Dinner at the gulag was included for all the residents. Although, to our surprise, we Brits found ourselves squirreled away in our ‘private dinning area’. Maybe, it was Helen’s buttering up of the staff, maybe they thought we’d get in a brawl with the Aussies, or maybe they just wanted to contain the spread of vegetarianism. Either way, the room was one of the few places with Aircon, and we weren’t complaining!

Breakfast consisted of bread, cheese and meat but steadily tended towards cornflakes as the kitchen staff grew to understand the British palate.

Lunch and dinner both followed the same pattern. A bowl of ‘probably chicken soup’, a side salad with varying ratios of cabbage to cucumber, and a main of ‘mostly meat’. Veggie options were perhaps not inspiring, but as far as I can tell the kitchen staff bent over backwards trying (regardless Kerry is quite a fussy eater).

I don’t really know whether our menu at the school qualified as ‘tradional Macedonian’. But, assuming it does, Macedonian dishes largely seem to consist of ‘two meat and one veg’. A dramatic departure from the British classic of ‘one meat and two veg’. It must be said though the Macedonians do cook good meat.

In addition to being a tad flat, the other downside to the river was the smell. While I’m not well versed on the ins and outs of the Veles sewage system, it would appear that most of it just seems to be dumped straight in the river. Again this is a stark departure from the UK where we pay an ever increasing amount for water companies to pretend to process sewage before dumping it into our waterways. So as in Ceske Budjovice, as in Nottingham we were on strict sanitation protocols, coating ourselves in hand sanitizer the second we got out of the river.

Fortunately these protocols worked to great effect, which was a massive relief as nobody fancied a ‘bum-wee’ on the squat bogs. Well, nobody except for Billy, who got ill on the last day.

Despite the efficacy of the protocols, in an effort not to try our luck, we retreated to lake Mladost for a day. Located just to the north of Veles, lake Mladost is set in a scenic location between the hills that doesn’t stink of shit. The lake boasts fishing, swimming spots, a spa and makes an excellent 4km loop to paddle around. Be warned though, it can get hot out there and when the wind picks up in the afternoon it can get Bumpier than the Vadar!

As always on a river racing trip the time flew, and before you knew it the digger had finished construction and it was time for the opening ceremony. We caught up with our friends from the other nations and settled in for the celebrations. Last year the Macedonian open ceremony scored a 10/10 because we all got big comfy seats to sit in. This year we were outside in an amphitheatre, slightly less cushionned but equally seated. The ceremony featured a cracking live band, confused but charming dances from the local primary school and some surprise fireworks, that definitely wouldn’t have passed UK health and safety regs. Another 10/10.

Saturday was sprint day. Usual format, 2 heats in the morning, finals in the evening (mercifully avoiding the midday sun). The first heat went well, Kerry made the top 5 in WK1 to move straight through to be followed by the Crow in C1 and the Christie C2. Sheppy, narrowly missed out on a top 5 spot but promisingly all the senior MK1 (yours truly included) made the top 15.

This promise was fulfilled in the second Heat when all three of the MK1 qualified to the final. Emma also qualified in the the WK1, making this the first time all British Boats and all British Paddlers had made it to the sprint finals! For nearly everyone on the team this was our first senior sprint final and the sense of jubilation on the bus was palpable as we headed back for lunch.

The afternoon saw the Balkan Championship taking place, into which Jamie and Billy, our coaches were entered. We watched the livestream, safe from the sun in the gulag as Jamie took 2nd and Billy took 1st, making the British the fastest Balkans.

Sprint finals started at 18:00. Late enough that the trees were mercifully casting some shade onto the river, but not late enough for the midday heat to have dissipated. It seemed the water from Matka had failed to arrive and the river had dropped from what it had been during the heats. Freddie and I stood on the bridge warily eyeing the level and debating whether the lower flow now favoured the frenchie middle line or wether our previous left line was still the best line.

Kerry stuck to her guns powering down the left line to take an incredible third place with Emma less than half a second behind in 11th. The Crow took 7th in C1M down the left. But above in the warm up area Freddie and I were still debating. I still didn’t know which line I was going to take as I lined up for the start. Ahead of me Lazarov (Macedonia) went left, Marien (Belgium) went middle. Fuck it I’m going middle too.

I’d done it once in practice (although not very well) and I knew I wouldn’t beat most of the paddlers there in a straight head to head race, so why not take a gamble on a different line? A hail Mary. Death or Glory!

I nailed it, avoiding the worst of the waves and settling into a final position of 12th, my best ever sprint result. Freddie also placed a bet on the middle, taking a slightly different line to finish 10th. But it was Alex Sheppy, placing his faith on the left that took our best result.

He crossed the line into 1st place. Unable to breath. 5 paddlers left to go. Perilously close to a podium. Freddie and I rafted up to Alex to count in the paddlers. Ciotoli (ITA) into 2nd, Sheppy is still in 1st. Montulet (BEL) into 4th, Sheppy is still in 1st. Nejc Znidarcic (SLO), the legend of the the sport, 1st. Sheppy is now in 2nd, only 0.21 seconds behind Nejc, but there are still 2 paddles left.

Linus Bolzern (SUI) crosses the line into 3rd. Alex has done it, he’s guaranteed a medal. Doreau (FRA) slips into 2nd by just 0.02 seconds to give Alex the Bronze. It’s the first British senior mens podium in over 12 years. As Jamie gives Alex the obligatory post-race interview he struggles to hold back the tears. By the time Alex reaches the bus he’s a blubbering mess. “Happy tears are good tears” is the message as phones start pinging with congratulation messages, completely overshadowing Alex’s sister’s engagement earlier that day.

The fun didn’t stop there. Kerry and Emma still had their C2 sprint to go. They’d qualified in 2nd place just 0.20 seconds behind the French pair, a gap we knew they could close. We lined the bank screaming at the top of our lungs: “UP, UP, UP, UP”, begging them to rag it as hard as possible across the long flat section at the top of the course.

Success. The girls crossed the line a full 1.30 seconds ahead of 2nd. “It’s a gold for Grand Britannia!” As the night grew in we were blinded by the Union Jack (sans saltire) projected behind the podium. Celebrations were short and sweet though, because tomorrow was classic day.

I’ve said it once, I’ll say it again: Classics are my jam.
However, in the baking heat, even I was nervous about what was to come. That morning we’d departed the gulag for the final time and were now counting down the minutes in the inferno that was the quarry which doubled as the classic start. Hiding in the only available shade we chatted shit with Linus and Nejc laughing over the conspicuous ‘toy’ jutting out from the wall. “It is probably for the Italian C1, extra connection to the boat!”.

I doused my t-shirt in the water before getting on in a vain attempt to keep cool. The classic would be roughly 15/16 minutes long and could easily be decided on how quickly everyone caught heat stroke. I did my best to keep my ‘warm up’ to the shade. Before I knew it I was on the start line and then I was away.

As I rounded the first bend I could spy Ljubomir, Mr Macedonia himself in the distance, and I could taste blood. I dug deep telling myself to pick it up every 10 to 20 paddle strokes. I caught him by the Island, a little over half way and then it was just a case of desperately holding onto the speed until the end. As I approached the finish every sinew was screaming, my ears were ringing and I thought my heart was about to burst through my rib cage. Up, up, up.

“You looked strong across the line” said Jamie. I didn’t feel strong, I could barely make the eddy at the end, but that’s a good sign. It was hot, unbearably hot and I struggled to string sentences together as Jamie gave me the interview.
“Do you know where you came?”
“No.”
“10th” – My best international result to date.

Alex and Freddie were close behind 12th and 13th respectively while the Crow took 5th in MC1. In the WK1 Emma broke the top 10 to make 9th and Kerry took home a well earned silver medal. But that clearly wasn’t enough as when the Christie sisters went for round 2 in the WC2 they demolished the French and Czech crews to take another gold. This time by over 19 seconds.

That brought the medal total for the weekend to:
2 bronze, 1 silver and 2 golds. Not too shabby!

If I’m allowed to be serious for a moment, I’d like to thank the Macedonians, the city of Veles, and the local school for hosting us and a great competition!

Now onto world cups 3&4!

The Czech World Cups

This year the season’s end took place in Czech with the final world cup events at Lipno and České Budějovice.

The race course at Lipno is infamous. This is partially thanks to the 1992 World Champs where 30 cumecs of water were dumped down a course that normally handles less than half of that. But, even with a sensible amount of water the course is big and steep. However there is another reason for its infamy. The river Vltava is easily the stinkiest river in Europe!

At Lipno the river releases out the bottom of a dam bringing with it the remnants of whatever has sat decaying at the bottom of the reservoir for the past eternity. The smell this releases is not too dissimilar to the smell released by standing in knee deep canal mud. Except, where the canal mud smell dissipates within a second or two, in Lipno there is no escape and the stomach wrenching smell saturates the valley encroaching on your every breath until you can no longer remember a reality without it. Needless to say, Riverstench felt right at home!

The last article I wrote on the previous world cups centered around the difficulty of learning a new course within a short timespan. Lipno took this to the extreme. Releases out of the Lipno dam only occur at paddleable levels one weekend every year. This not only makes learning the course hard, but it also ensures it’s very busy. Over this one weekend the river played host to not only the Wildwater world cups, but also the Czech slalom Championships, the devil’s extreme race and rafting world cups (which we had sadly neglected to enter).

There were 2 hours of water on Thursday and 4 hours of water Friday before the racing on Saturday and Sunday. Fortunately with Lipno being quite large, all of the rapids were quite distinctive meaning it only took a few laps to get to grips with the rough lines. Although again the headcams were invaluable for cleaning these up a bit.

One quirk of the course is that before the finish there are two long flat lakes you have to rag it over before the final and biggest rapid of the river pops up to sucker punch you just before the finish. This caught out Alex the previous time he’d raced here in 2018, leading to a lovely swim across the line. Getting the balance right between pulling hard across the lakes, but not so hard that you piss it in at the end was clearly going to be a challenge.

But for the Serbian team this would come with an extra complication. They’d been unable to make the Thursday and Friday practice sessions and in the morning of the 1st race the final rapid had been closed off for the rafting world cups. This meant they’d have to run the final rapid, blind for the first time in the race!

Fortunately one of the Serbs came up with a cunning plan. He’d ease up over the lakes, allowing Alex who started 30 seconds behind him to catch up. Then Alex could show him down the final rapid, avoiding catastrophe. Unfortunately the Serb hadn’t planned on Alex pissing it in again, which led to one of the team’s favorite photos in recent history.

Alex wasn’t the only one to have issues though, with Rob also making a similar mistake. For my part I also made a mess of the bottom, going right through the meat of everything, losing a lot of time, but fortunately not losing my boat.

Up until this point Czech had been an intolerably hot 30⁰C but after the first day of racing the clouds gathered so thick that the sun seemed to set early. The wind started picking up, threatening the marquees and attempting to steal our drying thermals. Then the torrential rain came. Over 2 cm within 2 hours transformed the campsite into a myriad of small lakes and rivers. We watched on from the van trying to make backup plans for when we’d discover that all our tents had been drowned.

Miraculously everything mostly survived, although any hope of dry canoeing kit was gone. Some of the french girls were even kind enough to come check on us. By the sounds of things they’d had an even tougher time than us as they were “completely soaked” and “had no clothes left”! But Alex sent them away as he was “already warm and dry”, curled up inside his sleeping bag.

The format of the world cups was a tad odd with Lipno hosting 2 classic races back to back on the same course and Ceske Budejovice hosting 2 sprints back to back on the same course. So having done it all on Saturday at Lipno, on Sunday we’d do it all again!

This presented a good opportunity to take the mistakes from the first race and apply the lessons from them to the second. In a rare moment for forethought I’d filmed my first race run which I then went over with Nicky later that evening. It turned out to be time well spent as, despite lower levels I managed to shave a few seconds off my time. Alex too made good use of the 2nd day, finally finishing a race run at Lipno.

After 2 solid days of racing the Czechs had organized a little party to celebrate the end of world cups 3 & 4. If there is one thing that the Czechs do better than paddling it is partying and the highlight of this party was definitely the alpine luge. An alpine luge is basically a metal half pipe that winds down the mountain. You navigate this sat upon a glorified kitchen tray on wheels with a single lever that operates the brakes. This was almost too much fun, particularly after a couple of beers, but what really transformed the experience was the speed trap at the end. Surprisingly if you allow a bunch of athletes to record their top speed things instantly turn into a competition.

With this being my primary motivation I decided that the break was likely redundant. My reasoning for this being that nobody would design such a contraption where my safety was wholly dependent upon my own competence and even if they did, they’d probably be reluctant to allow me on it after a few pints. What I had failed to account for is that I was not in Disneyland. A fact that became all too apparent as I hit the top lip of a banked corner and continued on down the pipe sans sledge. You’ll be relieved to know I survived the ordeal, despite leaving some skidmarks of my ego down the track.

The following morning we departed a grey and drizzly Lipno to arrive in an equally grey and drizzly České Budějovice. Earlier in the trip we’d been cunningly abbreviating this to simply ‘České’. This caused some confusion from the Czechs who later informed us that ‘České’ more or less translates to ‘town’ or ‘city’ in the context of a place name and what we were saying was more or less gibberish. Still, České has a Decathlon. And the Decathlon had new, but more importantly dry shoes and towels we could buy having failed to dry nearly everything.

České Budějovice, to use its proper name, was to host the next 2 world cup races. Both would be sprints, and both would be on the artificial white water course just outside of town. While the water outside of Budějovice was a lot less smelly it is renowned for being rougher on the belly. The Czechs had kindly warned us about this by lobbing bog rolls at our heads during the opening ceremony. Little did they know we train on the Trent, and thanks to the lackluster performance of British water companies are well used to swallowing sewage. Still we followed a near religious regiment of hand washing and stomach washing with copious amounts of coke, to a moderate success.

The white water course itself was like a compressed version of our local white water course. A little steeper, a little tighter and a little swirly-er. As someone who tends to lean more towards the Classics, I’d never spent too much time focusing on trying to tighten up a sprint run. But, having the two Sprint World Cups presented the opportunity to target this neglected area of my skill set. Unfortunately highlighted some deficiencies in my repertoire and after a few frustrating practices Nicky, our coach, settled on new mantra to rectify these issues. “Long, strong, straight”, which I think was mostly in relation to my paddling.

Sadly my race runs over the next two days were a little disappointing. A marked improvement from how I was paddling upon arrival to České Budějovice but a few small mistakes (and one large spin out) meant they didn’t quite live up to their full potential. Still over the two days the rest of the team put in some strong performances with Freddie winning the Czech cup race and Phil putting down one of his best ever sprint runs.

To close things off there was of course more partying, this time featuring a mosh pit and the local Czech ska-punk band. The a rainy 6am departure, for a rainy 23 hour journey home, to a rainy Nottingham. 10/10 would do again.

Overall the world cups provided a lovely close out to the 2023 season. Lipno is now one of my favorite paddling destinations and I hope we will be returning there soon. Meanwhile the lessons I learned at České Budějovice will hopefully form solid foundation my 2024. Now all that’s left to do is enjoy all of the regional and National races in the UK over the winter!

Mezzna World Cup

The road from Augsburg to Mezzana is stunning. Or, at least the bits I could hold my eyes open for were. After a weeks excitement I couldn’t help nodding off in the van, but as always the majesty of the mountains transfixed my attention as we crossed the Brenner Pass.

I’d been lucky enough to paddle Mezzana just a couple of weeks earlier on my grand plastic Fantastic tour of Italy and Austria. Then I’d rocked up completely oblivious as to our destination only to be greeted with a large sign advertising the event we were now competing in. While I’d only managed a couple of laps on that flying visit it was almost comforting returning to a river I was acquainted with. Even more comforting to see the level had risen to cover a few more rocks!

The scheduled called for racing to start on Thursday with the classic. We’d arrived late Sunday evening after the long drive giving us just a meager 3 days to learn the long, continuous course.

Racing is hard. That shouldn’t really come as a surprise, but not many people realise that thinking is harder. But, what is really difficult is doing both at the same time. They seem to pull from the same limited pool of human effort. The harder you pull in the race, the less thinking juice is available. And, as tiredness sets in, concentration begins to lapse. Lapses in concentration lead to mistakes. Mistakes cost time and cruelly require more effort to fix. This combination can easily snowball into a catastrophic race run, and therefore we practice.

We try to learn every rock, every wave, every little flow ladder the river has to offer. The aim is to know the river like the back of your hand. So, come race day, you can be all pull and no think. But, in practice this is quite hard.

This image doesn’t fit neatly into the story but I’ll be damned if I don’t post it

On Monday we did 4 four classic runs. Two in the morning, two in the afternoon. (I did the first two in the whopper to probe out all the rocks). On tuseday we did 3, two in the morning, one in the afternoon. Finally on Wednesday we just did one in the morning, resting up in the afternoon before race day.

A grand total of 8 laps. But is that really enough to learn a continuous 17minute course? No. And if you think otherwise you’re a cocky little dickhead.

The first 2-3 runs generally get you acquainted with the river. Another few runs and you’ll probably have worked our roughly where the racing lines are. Then You’ll need at least a couple more laps to glue everything together and we’ve not even thought about optimising the line yet. Is it quicker to sneak the other side of that rock, do you need to be a half-foot further over to avoid those waves? Needless to say commiting a whole classic course to memory is no easy task.

Mezzana went loosely like this for me:

Run 1 – Oh my god where the hell am I?
Run 2 – Yep I still don’t recognise it
Run 3 – Ah, I recognise this bit and I did not want to be here
Run 4 – Okay, yeah I want to be there next time
Run 5 – What the hell there’s a rock here too!
Run 6 – Yep, nice, got this bit dialed. But do we go left now, or slightly less left
Run 7 – Finally, I think I’ve got it all stuck together, I just need to avoid that rock at the start.
Run 8 – Fucks sake, how do I keep hitting this rock?

Fortunately we’ve got a secret weapon: head cams [INSERT YOUR BRAND HERE (pretty, pretty please sponsor me)] Head cams are an invaluable tool for helping to learn both classics and sprints. Paddling is hard work, and watching back head cam footage is an easy way to squeeze in extra laps without destroying your body.

In between groaning and lying on the floor, evenings on the British team are often spent reviewing the days footage. We debate lines, identify and fix mistakes and crucially revise the river until it becomes a part of our souls. It’s kinda like F1 drivers practicing on the sim but with a much lower budget!

We had a little bit of fun learning the lines at Mezzana (alpine rivers have a very different characteristics to our brown British rivers), but by the time classic day arrived I was feeling pretty confident with the lines.

Unfortunately though it wasn’t my race. While I put the boat exactly where I wanted it (bar a smallish mistake at the end). The fast flowing alpine water was very heavy on my forearms which began to cramp up by about the half way mark. This combined with the dreggs of an illness and the need for near constant stroke timing through the continuous waves meant I struggled to really put the hammer down. Still I’ve had worse races and this was an excellent chance to get some alpine style water under my belt.

A nice pick me up, came in the form of a raft race that afternoon. We’d noticed it in the schedule on the drive over and had thought it’d be a good lark. When Jamie, out team leader, asked at the briefing about entering there was some umming and ahing from the organisers until they concluded, yes. Yes we could enter.

What we hadn’t realised is that the raft race wasn’t just a mere jolly and was actually part of the rafting world cup. It also wasn’t just the one race, with a raft classic and sprint on the first day of racing. Followed by raft slalom and raft cross in the days after. A lot of bang for our buck of €15 (and we even got bonus stash).

They didn’t even ask how competent we were, which was probably a good thing. Somehow I was the most experienced rafter in our boat, thanks to having actually been in a raft before. Nevermind that was probably 8 years back. Making up the rest of our Men’s ‘British’ boat was Andrew (who paddles C1, which is kinda like a raft), Leon (who’s been in C2s before) and a totally unexperienced American who we’d press ganged into racing. A second British boat was entered into the Mixed category consisting of all three Christies and horary Christie, Rob.

We didn’t exactly fancy ourselves as ringers (not since we discovered it was a world cup), but somehow we didn’t end up finishing last! So the British rafting team better watch their backs!

Doing the raft races the day before sprint heats probably wasn’t the best race prep, but nobody in our team was really targeting the sprint (and the rafting was a lot of fun). However, Andrew still made it through to the Finals in C1 and C2 with Jamie (despite a little dip) and the Christie Girls also qualified their C2 for a final (no dips required).

Maybe one day I’ll make a final too, but I’ve got a lot to improve on the sprint. My heat 1 line was dairly on point, but my technique often seems to fall apart in the heat of the moment. Jamie provided me with some much needed advice for the 2nd run, to avoid upping the rate too high and just focus on connecting with each paddle stroke and pulling hard. This seemed to work wonders but unfortunately my line in the second run took me through a lot of the chop. Still I was only a second slower when compared to the first run, which was a better margin than most of the field. However, I was still a long way off the final. So we’ll just call that another learning experience.

Obviously, the main event for us that day was the raft slalom! It was about as chaotic as you’d expect. There was a lot of ‘constructive’ shouting aboard our raft and between the two run we did manag to get all of the gates! Unfortunately we didn’t manage all of them in a single run, but once again we weren’t last.

Without a team race at the World cups and with no finals for myself this was sadly the last of my racing for the event. But we wouldn’t let that be the last of our paddling. Throught the week Jamie had been remincing of the 1993 World Championships he’d raced in. That race had been held on a different section of river, somewhere bellow Mezzana, and we all (or well mostly) thought it’d be fun to go check this part of the river on finals morning.

This was part of the section I’d paddled previously paddled in a plastic boat. I was again, back in a plastic boat, but now it was a much more lively wavehopper. This turned out to be quite a good decision as the river had dropped a tad, and definitely would have been a bit better with a little more water. But bouncing off rocks was a lot of fun in the wavehopper (although slight less fun for everyone in composite boats) and there were definitely clean lines through everything (bar maybe a big weir drop) but learning them properly would be a lot of work and quite a bit of trial and error. A bit like Treignac really.

Still this was a great section of river and somthing I’d love to paddle again. It was so much fun that (thanks to a small miscommunication) I sailed right past the get out (which I’d previously camped at) and right round the corner! I survived the experience, but Leon who followed me was less than impressed.

We finished off the morning with a couple of farewell classic laps before hanging around to watch the sprint finals and have a couple of well earned beers.

There was also a ‘small’ party which was a nice chance to let loose and get a little better acquainted with the other teams. Although that’s all I’m allowed to say on that…

The only thing left to do on Sunday for Rob, Leon and myself was a leisurely sight seeing drive over to Verona airport. Our underpowered little hire car strained itself to drag us over stunning mountain passes and we had a lovely little dip lake Garda. Inevitably, the flight was delayed into the early hours and I had to sleep on the airport floor before getting into work late on Monday.

10/10 would do again!

Euros ’23: North Macedonia [Part 1]

I must admit, I’m not sure I would ever have visited North Macedonia were it not for this years European Championships. Unlike its neighbour Greece, North Macedonia doesn’t reside within the popular coniousness of holiday destinations (at least for us Brits). There are some reasons for this as it turns out, but when I mentioned where I was heading to my friends and family I was usually met with raised eyebrows and the guilty admission/question; “and were exactly is that?”.

I must admit, had you asked me last year I would have been unable to answer.

But that is one of the fantastic things about kayaking, it takes you to far flung and hidden destinations you never would have thought to visit.

Those who I spoke to that did know North Macedonia sung praises of their food and wine, but also tales of stray dogs communist blocks and the helpful tip not to drink the tap water. As we touched down in the airport encased in mountains all I really knew is that we should be in for an adventure, and Macedonia did not disappointed.

We were of course here for the 2023 Wildwater European Championships, held in Canyon Matka, just outside of the capital Skopje. We were fortunate to fly out to this which even with an extremely tight transfer in Warsaw involving drowning lieters of water to get through security again) was far preferable to the 3 day drive. Unfortunately, we still needed to get our boats out and so our voluntary support staff (made up of Billy, Williey and Peter) undertook the heroic treck across Europe with the Minibus and trailer. Prior to leaving a special appeal had to be made to British Canoeing to take a more discrete Bus as the three ex-RAF lads didn’t fancy driving through Serbia with a bus that had Union Jack plastered across its sides. Luckily, while their journey was not without incident they arrived safe and sound to collect us from the airport.

Here was our first taste of Macedonian driving, which I can only describe as ‘assertive’. After a week we were still unsure as to what exactly the rules were, if they existed at all. Yet, while spicy, the driving wasn’t aggressive. The cars were some how less banged up than their parisian counterparts and there seemed to the genral consensus that if a pedestrian was ballsy enough to step out into the road you should probably stop for them.

We toured past restaurants, coffee shops, street begggars and, what was quite frankly a staggering number of chandelier shops before arriving at our apartment. Upon arrival we realised somthing appeared to have been lost in translation and the 4 bedroom appartement we had booked, turned out to be more like 4 beds. But with the addition of a few mattresses on the floor we were able to settle down for the evening.

Practice

Canyon Matka, where the competition was being held, is Skopje’s number 1 tourist arraction according to various online sources of variable reputations. And we were lucky enough to be headed there every day for the whole week.

After a what felt like a particularly long winter of paddling in the UK we were all excited for some medetrain warmth, arriving only to find some overly familiar damp and dreary weather. An old man I’d later meet exploring Skopje’s old bazaar attributed the unseasonable weather to Putin’s cloud seeding to support his war in Ukraine, although the veracity of this statement is hard to ascertain. Inevitably back home for the first time this year the sun was shining and delivering temperatures of 20⁰C. Still Macedonia’s 15⁰C was not bitter enough to break out the winter kags, and I was just pleased to be paddling in the double digits.

The course in the Matka Canyon is roughly some 500m bellow a dam that controls the flow, giving an ample area for warming up.

The couse starts with a small drop into a wave train that leads to the 2nd feature, a small stopper. From here the water flattens out before being split by an island, then its 30m of flatish water before the course drops into an S-bend. Theres a pillow on the right before a series of diagonal waves try to force you left into the final stopper. Finally there is a mad and painful dash around a slight bend to the finish where you slot through a small and swirley gap. The classic coruse continues for another few kilometers below mostly consiting of small wave trains and flow ladders, an island that could be taken either side and a few last corner cuts to the finish.

There wasn’t anything difficult on the course, but that also means that there is little room for error as every 100th of a second matters in the race. Quick to learn difficult to master.

The crux of the course was the the S-bend to last stopper section. This took some work and even some of the bigger names could be caught being forced left into he meat of the last stopper or spinning out into the eddy on the left.

Swimming here was ill advised as Katie managed to find some sharp objects in the bottom pool. Not that this advice was well headed by paddlers of assorted competences.

Katie’s fun didn’t stop there as on the second day her seat dislodged on the first drop. This led to a frantic fixing frenzy between the morning and afternoon practice sessions. This would have been a difficult task in the rainy damp weather, but fortunately she managed to find a friendly Macedonian man who let her and Billy into a cave below race control so they could fix the boat in the dry.

The cave had previously been residence to an old artist who had decided to decorate his abode ‘a la serial killer’, with mannequins dressed in a unique and “slightly sexual” manner. Despite the disconcerting decorations the cave provided the required shelter and the seat was (re-)secured in time for the afternoon.

Katie returned, boat fixed in time for lunch and carrying a request from the “Australians” that they’d like to do an afternoon’s classic run with us. This request was met with slightly raised eyebrows given that we were at the European Championships. “Are you sure you don’t mean the Austrians?” But alas we were wrong to question her, as there were indeed a couple of Aussies (alongside the Austrians) at the European Championships! They were competing as forerunners ahead of a 3 month or so tour of Europe and were more than happy to give them some shuttles.

The shuttle was needed. Apparently the Albanian Muslim enclave that was located at the classic get out doesn’t take lightly to indecency. The message quickly propagated through the team leaders, that any paddlers exposing themselves at the get out were potentially in danger of being beaten up or forced to marry any woman who’d been unfortunately enough to see us. Apparently even our towel wrapped British modesty was too much and we’d need to be bussed away before we got changed. Goodness only knows how the French/Czechs managed with their tendency disrobe as the slightly opertunity. Fortunately nothing ended up coming of this, although half naked men Hunting for wives became the running joke if the trip.

Touristing

After two and a half days of practice we had an afternoon off. The dam wouldn’t be releasing water and we needed to rest up before racing commenced tomorrow. This presented two options; either longe around the flat doom scrolling as I had for the last few days or go “Touristing” around skopje with Peter and Willie. Uncertainty whether I’d ever visit North Macedonia again I chose the latter.

The centre of Skopje is a little weird. A lot of it was flattened in an earthquake in 1963. This means a lot of what you can see is relatively new, with a relatively recent neo-classical facelift. In places this this leans into the uncanny valley where glass facades are fronted by Greek columns. However, overall I think I like this and it is refreshing to see new buildings that are not an amorphous collection of glass steel and concrete.

Also scattered throughout the city are a collection of statues, similar to what you might see while wondering through Vienna. But again these statues are new. They as many statues do they often depict national hero’s of old. A taxi driver later described them to us as a but “kitch”, and while they make good tourist attractions, perhaps they are. To my uniformed eyes it seems somewhat symptomatic of a country attempting to regain a sense of cultural identity after that was oppressed while in the communist block. But then again what do I know?

As we toured through the old bazaar Willie befriend an ancient antique dealer, who refused to sell him a carving of a dog. As well as informing us of Putin’s cloud seeding efforts he told us of the greek-macedonian civil war from which he had once been a refugee. The Brits had supported the Greeks, hence why Greece has become the popular tourist destination. Being Irish Williey gets a free pass on the old colonial oppression front, but Peter and myself offered what little our apologiesare worth.

Pondering history that we knew little of we accended the hill to the fortress. The outside walls are old, ottoman, probably. But the inner walls are older still, roman? Greek? From the parapets we surveyed a city in the process of reinventing itself for the 21st century. We looked out across the sights we had seen, the statues, the old bazaar, the new mall and up the valley to Canyon Matka. Most prominently of all, the sight of our hire car, just as it was about to get towed.

Instantly the sight seeing tour was over and my afternoon of rest was punctured with a brief cardio session as I ran down the hills in an attempt to avoid the inevitable. It was too late. The car was gone.

Peter, Williey and myself regrouped around the location where our car had previously resided. When we parked there, it had been surrounded by other Macedonian cars that we had assumed knew what they were doing. These too were now missing.

In a weird coincidence at this point we bumped into Billy and Jamie driving the bus to try and get the trailer lights fixed. We were able to relay the issue and that we might need rescuing after they’d fixed the lights but all we really succeeded in doing was spreading the panic that we’d lost one of team transports the day before racing commenced.

We assessed our options. Asking the Macedonian team for help? Going back to our friend the the old bazaar? In the end some Willie had the quick thinking to flag down a passing taxi and request that they take us to the police impound.

In broken English the taxi driver ‘educated’ us on our choice of parking as well as giving us his thoughts on the statues and recent developments. But in a short journey away from the city centre we were at the police impound, neatly situated bellow a large railway overpass. Have you really expreinced a place until you’ve been to the police station? I think not. A few jumbled conversations and a fine or two late (there is a silly foreigners tax) and we had the vehicle returned.

Incidentally this wasn’t the first time Peter had a car towed while on an international canoeing event. If you are curious he says that the Macedonian beaurocracy surrounding this issue is far more sensible than the Italian!

Tragically after this little incident we no longer had time to see the aqueduct or grab a coffee in the old bazaar, but to everyone’s relief we did make it home in time for dinner and the opening ceremony… just.

Btches be Btchen

It was 5am when we crawled out of our tents. We’d arrived at 11:30 the night before and did not have nearly enough sleep. Regardless, we clambered down below the lifeboat station with our boats. As we put on our decks the sky had begun to glow but the sun had not yet seen fit to emerge above the horizon.

I have a little bucket list for canoeing, and for as long as the list has existed the Bitches has been near the top. For those not in the know, the Bitches is a tidal rapid that forms between the most south west tip of Wales and Ramsey Island. Named by old-timey sailors who swore like old-timey sailors, the Bitches is a formidable stretch of water and has been the ruin of many craft over the years. But, for plucky kayaks the waves formed on this rapid offer some of the best surfing in the UK.

Tidal rapids are something special. They seemingly spawn from nowhere as the moon and sun literally align to haul oceans over otherwise unavailing rocks, and where once sat quiet and calm water emerges a beast foaming at the mouth.

That metaphor may be a slight hyperbole, but fortunately like their werewolf brethren, tidal rapids follow the lunar cycle making them pleasantly predictable (unlike the rest of the UK’s rain fed rivers). Unfortunately today’s ‘pleasant prediction’ was that the bitches would be running around 6am-ish. Thus we found ourselves taking our first paddle strokes somewhat unsure as to whether we were the early birds or the worms.

From the get on its roughly a 3km paddle up the coast and across the Channel to the Bitches. This is best done while the water is still fairly slack and it can still be a bit of a slog, particularly in short boats. The paddle adds a small level of jeopardy as it’s impossible to know the form of the feature until you get there. This elevates the Bitches a mere park and play into a propper adventure.

We passed snoozing seals and hugged the coast, eddy hopping up the sea as the tide started to move like a great lumbering freight train beginning to depart the station. Across the channel we could begin to see the white caps around the black needle like rocks that form the Bitches, and so we left the comfort of the mainland and departed into the nearly 1 kilometer ferry.

And it really is a ferry glide. As soon as you pull out into the channel it becomes apparent how fast the water is already moving. It is here that you may start to understand just how exposed you are, floating in a tiny boat in an ambivalent ocean. But stomach that feeling for now, keep paddling and eventually you’ll find yourself in the large swirling eddies below the rapids. It will all be worth it.

I don’t really know what to say about the surfing. You know, it’s kind of the main event, the reason you’d go. If a bunch of white water paddlers are willing to subject themselves to well in excess of 10 paddle strokes to get anywhere it’s got to be pretty bloody good. And do you know what? The Bitches is really bloody good.

I think Jack’s photos speak louder than any words I could muster. We had hours of gorgeous soul surfing on beautiful glassy waves.

It really is the land of the long boats and I had a great time ripping around in my RPM, hoping over the central shoulder, to crash down in the curler on the far side. Some slightly more competent freestyle paddlers (looking at you Harry & Jack) were even able to pull off some blunts in their long-boats and the slalom boats could tear up even harder than my old plastic with their added speed. But, above all else I was probably most jealous of the surf kayaks.

Curious and reclusive beasts not often spotted in the UK, this was truly their natural habitat. Their flat bottoms, and knife sharp edges seemed to offer an unparalleled amount of fun on the fast green wave, even if it does take an unparalleled amount of concentration to avoid being power flipped into oblivion.

But fear not there are spots for short stumpy boats too, and portaging over one of the rocky outcrops means you’ll always be able to make the wave even if your boat or your biceps are not fast enough to ferry onto the main wave. There are also other features and waves to be found along ridges of rocks. These include, but are not limited to a curling wave that had a tendency to randomly swallow people and one that Harry Price described as ‘interesting’. So, make your own decisions on that one.

The main wave was by far the friendliest although, off the back of it the sea could be a little ‘‘munchy’. I definitely scored one or two mystery moves, and another member of our group actually suffered a deck implosion, so maybe remember those air bags. This was probably the first time most of us had ever had to use an x-rescue in anger. But not me, I was too busy eating sandwiches on a rock.

I’m also reliably told that a little bit of swell makes everything a little spicier and complicates the eddy access, as everything surges up and down several feet. It also increases the likelihood and size of the ‘way-home-whirlpools’, but more on that later.

*Harry proving he can paddle short boats anywhere and “Mr Teapot” about to get swallowed.*

Once everyone is knackered and the fun is over and done with, your paddle is not over and done with. While the paddle out is a sedate slog, the paddle back is certainly spicier. The route back to St. David’s lifeboat Station looks simple, but by now the tide is pumping even faster than before and will do everything in its power to flush you out into the Irish Sea or drag you towards some inconspicuous looking white caps.

It was just as we were considering these two fates that a certain Mr Teapot mentioned the way home ‘way-home-whirlpools’. “Way-home-whirlpools?”, I answered. “I hate whirlpools” replied jack”. And just like that all three of us were headed round in a big circle as a ‘way-home-whirlpool’ opened beneath us, threatening to suck us all in. These delightful features can form as you pull out of the relative calm behind the bitches into the main current and are certainly something to keep an eye out for. I have long been a believer that swans make the best sprint coaches, but they come second only to large whirlpool spouts that are already grasping at your tail.

Having survived our little ordeal, our attention was drawn back to the whitecaps. In actual fact these are far from inconspicuous and once in the current they barrel up faster than anticipated. As you rapidly draw closer you might make out a suspicious horizon line in the middle of the sea. This is Horse Rock, a series of underwater stacks in the middle of the current that form far less friendly whirlpools big enough to sink actual boats, let alone kayaks. Going through this is not recommended.

Thus there are 2 options. Option 1, a mad ferry above horse rock where you’ll be convinced you’re about to be flushed into it regardless. Or option 2, a mad ferry below the whirlpools where you’ll be convinced you’re about to be flushed out to sea. Personally, having now flirted with both options, I’m an option 2 man. I think the lifeboat will do a much better job of rescuing me if I’ve not been pre-drowned by Horse Rock. Plus, I’ve been meaning to visit Ireland some time regardless.

With only a few brief moments of panic we made it back to the lifeboat station, and clambered back up the steep steps. With the early start we were off the water by 8:30am. Just in time to grab Breakfast in St. Davids and spend the day doing whatever it is normal people do at the beach. Later we bag the evening tide and then a slightly more sociable 7am session the following morning.

With all the hazards and a veritable sea of consequence the Bitches is a highly recommended trip, but only for seasoned paddlers. There are local boat tours of the rapids and wildlife if you want to see the spectacle. If you pick a good tide, you may even see some paddlers out for a play. Or perhaps myself as I will definitely be back.

Thanks to everyone who made this trip.

Side Note: If traveling down from the north be sure to swing by Gloucester Services for what can only be described as an enlightening experience.

River Stench

Kayaks and irreverent misadventures, from in and around the water.

Tag: whitewater