It’s that time of year again when the freestyle kayakers hit the road. Our first meeting was in my back yard at the Reno River Festival: faces, new and old, reunited in the biggest little city for high water and great weather.
As you may have read, in lead up to the event I was coaching Sage Donnelly. At 8 years old she was the youngest competitor and by far the youngest female. After weeks of practice and managing a sudden spike in the water level Sage was ready for anything. I sat in the eddy as she floated around waiting for her turn. All smiles she entered the hole and executed an excellent ride; spinning right, then left, smoothly working both sides of the hole. Two rides and Sage was solid and confident in the hole, even making a nice plug at the end. As far as points are concerned Sage may not have racked up all that she had hoped for but from my perspective she showed me (and the hundreds of spectators) that she is a force to be reckoned with. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, Sage taught me a lot over that last few weeks: determination, perseverance to name a few. I look forward to watching Sage compete in Colorado in the next few weeks, her learning curve is on a steep upward climb right now; the sky is the limit for her.
I competed well and am happy with my first place finish. In the finals, Tanya, Emily and I went head to head in sudden death. In the first round Tanya got knocked out and Emily was in first. So after just finishing my ride from the first round I had to go straight away. My ride was solid but I did have to work back up after a late flush, basically if Emily had a good ride it was all over for me. Unfortunately for her it was not her best ride of the event leaving me on the top of the podium.
The men’s and junior competitions were fierce with rides packed with high scoring tricks and lots of combos. It was great to see my Reno training buddies Stephen Wright also coming out on top and junior Jason Craig making second. Yahoo!
Thanks to Allen Ebens for taking photos!
