whitewater grand prix 2014

So you’ve seen all the videos, read the blog posts but are still wondering just what it was like to be an athlete at the Whitewater Grand Prix in Canada this spring.  Well to sum it up in 5 adjectives it was: amazing, exhilarating, terrifying, exhausting and surprising.  To find out more…read on; here is my account as a competitor relatively new to the whole brown-clawing, flat cap wearing, stout, church scene of rather good whitewater kayakers.

The first surprise came within the selection procedure…the surprise of actually getting a spot to compete against the best kayakers in the world despite having very little big-wave experience and only a few race results to go by.  I know the selection procedure for the WWGP has undergone much scrutiny on various message-boards/riverbanks/eddies all over the world but you do have to bear in mind the difficulty of choosing athletes to compete in a series containing events requiring very different kayaking skills.  I think the organisation did a good job with the selections overall; obviously there will always be paddlers who deserve a place who miss out, but on the whole, I was impressed to see that the ‘invited’ and ‘qualified’ athletes tended to place above those who sent in applications or made reserve spots.  In the future it would be good to see more qualification events on a more global scale helping athletes from more remote countries in South America/Asia etc. having a chance to compete.

So the selection was done and I had come to terms that I’d be flying to Eastern Canada to scare myself silly, try and throw some tricks on monstrous waves and try to survive (and paddle fast) down some of the biggest rapids I’ve ever encountered.  How does one prepare for such a varied competition schedule?  For me it was quite tricky due to work commitments with World Class Academy (the international travelling kayak highschool), I was lucky enough to secure the time off for the competition but didn’t have much in the way of preparation time before the event.  Despite being able to kayak everyday with the school meaning I was kept in fairly good kayaking shape, I didn’t have the opportunity I might have liked to practice running more challenging rapids and surfing big waves in the lead up to the event.  One thing I did manage to pre­­­pare for was the cold water as the school was based in Washington state in the lead up to the event and my 3 year old leaky drysuit meant I was dealing with being cold on the water everyday!  Luckily this all changed when I showed up in Canada and was able to pick up a brand new Palm element drysuit along with the new FxR buoyancy aid to stop me sinking and a new spraydeck.  This resulted in me being warmer and dryer on the river than I have been in years despite ice-chunks big enough to re-sink the Titanic floating down the rivers next to us!

Ice on the Mistassibbi: Ben Marr

Enjoying my new Palm Element Suit Photo: Leif and Natalie

So I’d made it to Canada, I had all the gear and some idea, now I just had to bum a lift in a car (thanks Nicole and Jakub!) get a creekboat and a playboat (thanks Madawaska Kanu Centre and Nouria!) and get on the river.  The first event was to be held on the infamous Gladiator wave on the Ottawa river.  Unfortunately the river wasn’t quite high enough for the wave to be at its best, but me not being a big-wave snob like all the Canadians was quite happy and still thought it was the best thing I’d ever surfed.  The whole experience of ferrying out, dropping into a ginormous foam pile, bouncing like crazy, maybe throwing a trick or two with the most air you’ve ever had in your life, wiping out hard and then sprinting like mad to make the eddy to miss the death-pourover below definitely warrants the ‘exhilarating’ adjective used above!  Getting to watch the real big-wave pros like Nich Troutman and Dane Jackson on this feature was an incredible experience in itself and watching theirs along with Mariann and Adrienne’s performances has really enlightened and inspired me as to what I could learn to do in the future with some dedicated training.

Moving on from Stage 1 into an area I’m a bit more comfortable with…racing, although normally for me it doesn’t involve having 6 other women charging down the racecourse at the same time!  The boater-cross was without doubt the most fun event of the grand prix.  The big-water course was huge, but also super fun and not as daunting as the other racecourses to come.  I really enjoyed this event and came in with a decent finish just behind Martina who took her first (but not  last) win of the competition that day.  

Mariann on Gladiator: John Rathwell

Men's boatercross action

Stage 3 was another race, but this time just a timetrial with the best 2 out of 3 runs counting.  This is the stage where ‘terrifying’ comes in to play; a huge slide leading in to a 5-7m drop followed by a sprint around the corner into another rapid/drop with big holes in play.  Lucky for me the format meant that you could lose your paddle half-way down the slide and swim over the (let’s call it 7m) drop in one of your runs and still place ok based off the other 2 times, if you haven’t seen the picture already here it is!  Martina proved her consistency in this stage with 2 fast times taking the win for the women, though a shout-out should be given to Adrienne for the fastest women’s single run time that was faster than a good proportion of the men’s best!  Dane dominated in the men clinching first place ahead of Chris Gragtmans and Tino.  A customary evening of ‘rage cage’, an American drinking game involving ping-pong balls and red plastic cups, ensued after the race, and can be considered Stage 3 ½.

Swim! Leif and Natalie

Booty: Leif and Natalie

Stage 4 and 5 were both freestyle competitions held on the Mistassibbi river further north in Quebec.  The river had just unfrozen which was perfect for the waves coming in but slightly terrifying paddling down the river with sofa-sized chunks of ice.  Black Mass, the location for Stage 4, could possibly be responsible for some of the most fun I have ever had in a kayak.    No prizes for guessing the top contenders in the men’s event but it was great to see both my two fellow Brit competitors (Sam Ward and Palm’s Bren Orton) make the top 10 in this event.  Stage 5 was the most relaxed stage of the grand prix in that it was the least scary!  The wave was friendly, not so big by Canadian wave-snob standards, but still rather large by Sandra’s personal experience standards, and a lot of fun.  The style of the feature made it a bit easier for everyone to throw more tricks, and if you were good enough any trick was possible.  

Waiting for our rides: Leif and Natalie

Cheeky blunt: Leif and Natalie

After Stage 5 we started to move back down south with a night-long pit stop in local Quebec competitor (LP the Wolf’s) home town of Chicoutimi for a great night out that doubled as Sam’s stag do.  The next day we slowly moved to the location of Stage 6, the Basse Cachee River just outside of Quebec City, to find that it was good that we hadn’t rushed as the river was a little on the high side with no respite between frighteningly large holes, tallish drops and nasty-looking siphons.  Everybody (even Dane) ran away that afternoon and so when it was announced the next morning that the race would go ahead on that section there was definitely a feeling of trepidation amongst the athletes.  Luckily the river-level had dropped a little and whilst still intimidating the river looked slightly less like death and after watching the crazy boys run it, followed by the slightly more sensible boys followed by most the rest I got geared up and committed to giving it a go.  It was best 1 out of 2 runs, and I would have been quite happy with my first run if I hadn’t gone sideways, backwards and almost upside-down on the grade 2 section of the course.  Unfortunately I wasn’t able to pull it together on the second run either and so ended up quite disappointed with my final time.  Congratulations must go to Mariann though who got back in for a second run after a swim on the first and put down the fastest ladies time to take the win and to Dane for just clinching the victory off of Rush by a mere tenth of a second.

The whole event now over the ladies overall results were announced in the parking lot of the Basse Cachee River.  Martina’s consistent paddling style was something I was hugely impressed by (and envious of) over the 2 weeks and she took a well-deserved win of the WWGP title 2014.  The mens’ event took a little more time to work out and results were announced that evening in Quebec City…before drunken shenanigans ensued.  Contrary to most expectations it was Dane Jackson who came out on top followed by Rush Sturges in second and Joel Kowalski in third.

Last Boof: Leif and Natalie

I learnt a lot about my paddling and approach to competition during this event and there are many things I would like to improve upon before hopefully getting the chance to compete in a future grand prix.  What I enjoyed most about the event is that the ethos is not really that of a competition but more about getting a group of really good and motivated kayakers together on some of the best waves/rapids in the world and just seeing what can be achieved.  For me it was a privilege to get to watch and compete against those at the pinnacle of the sport that I love and I came away so motivated to get out and do as much kayaking as I can and hopefully one day maybe do an airscrew so I can be half as good as Dane and Nich who can do two in a row!

John Rathwell

Find out more about the event:http://www.whitewatergrandprix.com/
Most photo credits on this page go to Leif and Natalie Anderson.  Check out their blog:
http://leifandnatalie.blogspot.com/
Huge thanks to Palm Equipment
http://www.palmequipmenteurope.com/
And to Madawaska Kanu Centre for lending me a boat
http://owl-mkc.ca/mkc/