Charnay Beach Contest 2009
The motto of this year: sleep during the day and paddle at night !!
A new successful edition of Charnay Beach Contest !! I think this competition of kayak freestyle has marked the minds of everyone. With the presence of some of the best kayakers in France like Mathieu Dumoulin, Sebastien Devred and one big opportunity to have the world champions Emily and Nicholas Troutman here, who pampered us with an awesome show!!
Due to the floods on the saone river last year, I decided to cancel the event in 2008. This year, the water levels were low but I was sure this wave would be working for the competition, unfortunately I didn’t know exactly the right moment.
I checked water levels online all week long and I could see that the wave often worked during the night and in the morning. So, I decided to make the first Charnay Beach Contest “By Night”.
The competitors arrived all day on Friday but the water level was low and the wave didn’t work. Just the time for the organisers to confirm the registration and when at 23:00 o’clock the water began to emerge, the first paddlers could start training while the judges where preparing the place. Around midnight, in the windy and cold atmosphere, fafa launched the first Free Kayak Tour (French kayak freestyle championship) 2010…
Each participant came in the order free at the start of the springboard and go down on the wave for the first run. All this until 4 am… after few hours sleep it was left for another session of qualification from 10h until 12h because the water was running out to form the wave.
So, an afternoon of rest was well deserved for everyone. Some people played football, other guys learned how to slackline, the world champions learned how to play bowls and some others took a nap while the group of music took place for a roots concert in a awesome atmosphere! Once the concert ended and the water was back, the contest could resume with the semi-finals and finals.
We’ve seen a superb performance throughout the weekend, lots of big aerial moves, a few aerial combos and more, some new moves like the wavemonkey, too!
A big thanks to the principal partners Adidas and Sandiline, the Comité départemental de bourgogne, Kayak Session Magazine and the local cheese Hervé poulet from Jura.
A big thanks as well to all the guys who helped me throughtout the week and the judges who did not crack up face at the french mess ;-).
And a special thanks to Mr Dupond Vincent from Canada who motived me to redo the wooden sidewalls ;-) without whom we would not have had such a nice hole with that low water level.
You can check out more photos here…
See you soon,
Stefun Pion
Tags: Beach · Charnay · Contest · FKT · Mathieu Dumoulin
