Casper’s Canada wrap-up
For worlds training I spent 5 weeks in Canada last month. Canada no doubt will be the best place to spend your summer if you’re intending to train on wave moves. Ottawa river is usually chosen as a home base by most paddlers. Especially this year, the raft bases at Ottawa were filled with international athletes for their preparation for the World Championships.
As Thun (World Championships wave) is quite a small and technical wave, the Ottawa was probably the best location to train. With ‘corner wave’, ‘little baby face’ and ‘Big Smoothie’ on the same run, that all appear to have some similarities to Thun. The problem about Canada actually is, that it has got too much to offer, so it easily seduces a flatlander to diverge from his trainings schedule to enjoy the bigger waves around.
Photo: Gerd Serasolses
Photo: Gerd Serasolses
That’s how it occurred that Tim Uneken and me spent about more than 2 weeks surfing the High Tension wave on the Gatineau river, about a week in Montreal to surf ‘Habitat 67’ and ‘Lachine rapids’ and about a week on the Rouge river to surf ‘Vague de la familia’. Probably the last two spots were closest to some efficient training…
Photo: Leo Carpene
Photo: Leo Carpene
These waves totally explain why Canadian paddlers are so well skilled. I experienced a huge progression over the last couple of weeks. Part of it was because of the location for sure, but on the other side it helped me a lot to besharing the eddy with world’s best athletes.
I can predict one thing for the Worlds; The level is going to be insane! Making it through prelims will be a battle of the giants themselves.
Photo: Tim Uneken
Photo: Tim Uneken
Too bad Ottawa river never reached the ‘low’ level for Gaburator wave and just not tipped the ‘higher’ level for Buseater, as we were having a great tour, this would have completed it. That’s how we only spent the final 4 days of our trip on the Ottawa river. Maybe we surfed a lot of big waves, but it’s so sweet…
We’ll see how it works out in Thun…
Check www.icf-thun2009.ch or updates on wavesport.de about the World Championships starting next week.
Casper van Kalmthout
Tags: Canada · Casper van Kalmthouth · cx54 · Freestyle · high tension · kayak · wavesport
