ICF Canoe Freestyle Committee activities

ICF Canoe Freestyle World Cups, Plattling, Germany

Although we always strive to put on the best event possible, we had particularly high expectations for this year's World Cup series in Plattling. It just happens to be the perfect place for an event, with an experienced paddler focused organising team, a great competition feature, free camping next to the river, free and unlimited training, all this and a beer festival in town thrown in.

As usual the town of Plattling welcomed us with open arms. The opening ceremonies and procession through the town turned out to be real highlights. The procession culminated in the athletes gathering at a huge beer festival tent.  Live bands, dancing, singing and wiessbier ensued.

With the feature at a perfect level, ICF Canoe Freestyle World Cup 1 commenced at the unearthly hour of 7am, and the day’s programme didn’t finish until 9pm that evening. 14 hours a day of brilliant Canoe Freestyle. We had four full days of competition like that before flood warnings meant we had to cancel World Cup 2 after the opening round.

Both World Cups were peppered with stand out performances. Worthy of note was K1 women, with Zofia Tula producing an amazing, gold-medal performance in ICF Canoe Freestyle World Cup 1. American Landon Miller’s clean sweep in the men’s C1 and Great Britain’s Ottilie Robinson Shaw comeback from injury to dominate the women’s classes, taking overall World Cup wins in three separate classes.

Home favourite Mike Lochny got the biggest cheer of the whole event when he won the men’s squirt against the run of play. Another local paddler Tim Rees took golds in both World Cups in what is his last year as a junior man, while Ireland’s Leah Hough and Great Britain’s Isabella Wormall battled it out in the junior women’s class. Leah took the honours as overall winner.

This was a paddlers event and the atmosphere amongst the athletes reflected this. 

It was an opportunity for the paddlers to get together, have fun, play hard and compete hard. Most of all it was an opportunity for the community to come together and celebrate our sport, whilst remembering those who could not be with us. 

Well the floods came as predicted and within 24 hours the whole site was underwater, but this didn’t dampen anyone’s spirits. Freestylers are used to this. No-one's memories of the event will be diminished by the way it ended. A great time had been had by all. 

Massive thanks needs to go to Thomas and Anne and the organising team, along with Charlie and his judges, an awesome feat. But mostly thank you to the paddlers, you are the best. 

Everyone is now looking forward to next year’s ICF Canoe Freestyle World Championships.

Thank you Plattling.

By Terry Best, Chair of the ICF Canoe Freestyle Committee

ICF Canoe Freestyle Development Camp

This year's development camp was overall very successful. The camp had five participants from three different nations in Ireland, Norway and Peru. The ICF and the Organising Committee had put together a simple yet cosy camping set-up for everyone, with a big tent for cooking meals and smaller individual tents for all participants. Living at the same location as most other athletes and cooking meals together certainly added to the charm and made participants feel like the 'typical freestyle paddler'; a very direct way to include them in the sport. We gave dinners a different theme (country) every night to add an international touch to the menu. In such down-to-earth settings, both participants and coaches bonded very quickly and took a share in keeping the base camp organised. Coaches Valerie Bertrand and Eirik Pedersen of Norway put together a programme that included both on-water sessions, on-land technique and stretching, theory nights, video analysis, chats about competition planning and many social gatherings.

Tailored daily plans were sent via a WhatsApp group chat that linked participants, parents of minor participants, coaches and ICF representative Ciaran Maguire. When the camp ended, the participants had made new friends from across nations and our base camp had turned into a natural gathering point for teenagers. The camaraderie kept going between participants and coaches and when the competition started, the 'crew' held together as a team to cheer and support each other. The young ladies we had both took a top five placing in K1 junior women; a spectacular result considering the lack of previous experience. The Peruvian happily agreed to also compete in squirt, adding yet another nation to the squirt category. Between WC1 and WC2, we were told to move the base camp to another campsite nearby. With everyone's help, the new base camp looked just like the previous and continued to be the social point. The day after WC2 abruptly terminated and we were to part, it was hard to see everyone leave. We certainly fulfilled our original goals of inviting athletes of developing nations to grow their skills in freestyle kayaking, to include them in the community and to inspire them to spread positive words about the sport in their countries.

What makes these camps successful are the hours of planning and most importantly the people. The camp participants and the coaches. The coaches are the glue that brings everything together. Camp coaches Valerie Bertrand and Eirik Pedersen looked after everything sessions on the water sessions on the land, menus, shopping, volleyball and general good times.

When coaches go the extra mile, the results are amazing, Results for us are great feedback.

One parent said: “They are living their best lives. Young people face many challenges and it is important to get back to basics, paddling, camping, cooking living by the river. This type of experience will be remembered for a long time. Our coaches created the best environment so that skills could be improved and learned.”

By Ciaran Maguire, Member of the ICF Canoe Freestyle Committee in charge of development