Captain pas with our flagThe Girls and Boys teams have arrived in Inje, after a mammoth 16 hour flight via Dubai. The teams are settling in to great hotel accommodation with a very local breakfast/buffet consisting of rice and spam with a side of water melon. Plans for the day are to investigate the river, which at the moment is in need of a lot of rain. Fingers crossed for the flood like conditions we had been enduring in the UK for the past week.
Today was spent by the river, recovering from the journey and acclimatising ourselves to the water and the weather. Both teams paddled the upper section of the river in which the sprint and slalom events will take place whilst the others ate, swam and relaxed in the heat of the day. The rumors about the water levels were true, some sections were a walk and the rest were a scrape.
Well it has finally rained here and things have changed a lot, yesterday the river was very clear and very low where as today the river is a very dirty brown colour and very ... well unfortunately low still but hey my rain dance is progressing well. We have spent the day working on the balance of the raft because of an injury to stapes the night before we flew, we have had some big changes to make. He broke his foot in two places and was unable to travel so he has been badly missed. Fortunately we have the best reserve ever in "senour Bob" so things have not taken too long to get flowing. So with the aid of some video work we are looking forward to the up coming challenge.
The boys trying to be men!Today saw the registration of the teams and the first team captains meeting. The boys team with the loss of Stapes found a late reserve in the form of Bryony's dad Martin, having never rafted before he is hoping he won't get called upon, but is enjoying the freebies that come with being a competitor! Pas attended the first captains meeting which almost turned into a brawl (not really) there was heated discussions however with the organisers thinking of moving some of the events six hours away, driving by night as the venue has no accommodation, then driving back to finish the event!! The problem is that the sponsors want it in Inje but due to the severe lack of water some of the events cannot take place here!! It's all up in the air at the moment, all we know is that the sprint will be here and it will start on Saturday, so it's all training until then.
The night before the big event, the teams were escorted to the local stadium and led around the track by groups of school children before being treated to local displays and fire works.
The girls at the opening ceremony
We were treated to a very local display at the opening ceremony
Mens teams with our own team of local supporters!First day of the competition and us Brits proved to be on top form. Today saw the time trial sprints followed by head-to-head races down the sprint course. The last couple of days has been a bit sketchy with not much rain to feed the river, so a longer sprint course was set with a start on the flat. Much contention arose, as the start wasn’t staggered to suit the flow so teams in the left hand lane always won. Unfortunately, both the GB men’s and ladies teams were started in the right hand lane based on our time trial times. First up, the girls had an awesome time trial resulting in 5th place. This meant for some reason that we were up against the Canadian girls who had come first. Maybe this pushed us harder than ever, and led us to gain the fastest recorded time of all teams unfortunate enough to land the right hand lane! We came in with 5th place overall out of 13 teams – a much improved performance from our 9th place in Ecuador. Our time was only 2 seconds behind Canada! The men’s team looked really strong battling over the rocky river and gained 15th place in the time trial, just getting them into the head-to-head races. First up they were against Slovenia who placed 7th. As the count down began, unlucky Slovenia put in an early paddle stroke. The boys had not seen this and raced their best, however, the judges did see the false start, which led to automatic disqualification of Slovenia! The boys were just about ready to get off the river when they were told to get back for their second race – against the bongo banging Brazilians. On the start line they sang hip hip hooray to rival the Brazilian’s ritual chanting and praying. The boys were placed 8th overall with Brazilians eventually taking the win after a further two races. In the ladies event, Canada came first, New Zealand second, Czech third, Slovakia fourth and us in fifth!! Out of 13 teams. In the men’s Brazil were first, Japan second, Slovakia third and Italy fourth. We are all really pleased with the results and look forward to tomorrow’s slalom competition further down the river. - Bring on Slalom.
Girls on the sprint course, charging
The boys powering down the sprint courseSlalom
Well what a day for British rafting! Today brought the slalom, using a tight technical piece of the river the course was set and the teams were out bright and early discussing lines and tactics. The ladies were up first, the decision was made to go steady and clean, the buzzer sounded and a good solid run of the course resulted in one touch and a good line on the killer drop of the day the Devils Slot, landing them with a respectable seventh for the first round. The boys were up next and up against some serious competition. Powerful, controlled paddling saw them clinch an excellent eleventh place for their first run. The girls had been watching intently and decided to make a risky move and change their tactics for their second run. The pace was upped and a faster riskier move was pulled off on two crucial gates. The boys put in another very strong performance and the teams settled to wait for their results to come throughI was the first to hear the girls result. Unbelieving I checked and rechecked, then screaming down the steps, jumping from boulder to boulder I yelled THIRD!!!!!! We were so happy our first medal as a team, tears and laughter, hugs and screaming, general pandemonium broke loose. The scene was repeated when the boys turned up twenty minutes later. So a very proud team was up on the podium watching our flag being raised along side the Kiwis and the Czechs – best in the world. The guys held onto their eleventh, which puts them at eighth overall, the girls with that awesome result are now sitting fourth. All to play for, the endurance tomorrow BRING IT ON!!!!!
Here a look at a sequence of the girls on the squeeze during their slalom run
The girls fashioning their new silverwareEndurance
Final Stage of the competition today. The Endurance a head to head timed run down 13km of challenging white water, this stage accounted for 40% of our overall score. After of lack of water in Inje the event officials had all fingers and toes crossed for a delivery of water for this final part of the event. The gods must have been on our side, as the night before the event the heavens opened and gave us a heavy dose of water. So much so we could move to the upper section of river to a much steeper part of the river. On arrival to the river our hearts sank as the upper section was still missing water, we got on for a practice run, only to find the river level rising under us. A pool drop type of river meant heavy rapid sections very capable of flipping or pining a raft, on the practice run, 2 rafts had a pin situation, as luck had it they came off with out too many problems. A few classic drops provided vertical falls, perfect to attempt the raft boof!. We arrived at the top of the course, GB Mens team in a heat against Czech Republic and Australia, GB women against Germany and Slovakia. The mens team set away first winning the sprint start, GB had started well, unfortunately this was closely followed by a unlucky route choice allowing Czech and Australia, to move a head. Czech team now had clean water and moved away, GB mens team knew they needed to over take the Australian team to keep a top 10 result. Sure enough with greater power and route choice GB moved past Australia with a small clash of paddles, to come 2nd in their heat with a good time, very hopeful of a good placement. GB Women's Set off next with Slovakia moving away in to first place only make a poor route choice and be taken by GB. After moving in to the next rapid GB took on a lot of water slowing their raft massively, slovakia saw the opportunity and sneaked back into pole position, this set the format for the rest of the race with Slovakia coming in first followed by GB then closely followed by Germany, a very close tight finish showing the similar strengths of all these teams. After this testing race both teams were greeted by loyal supporters (mum and dad Great Britain and Mr Goo the driver) with cold beers ready to celebrate a successful race. Teams now only had to hope for a good overall placement.
The men ready to pounce on the Australians during the endurance
The ladies pushing on during the enduranceOn arrival back Head quarters, both teams where elated to discover we had achieved more than they had expected. GB Women's coming in 6th place on the endurance giving them 5th place over all, GB men coming in 10th place on the endurance achieving a final placement of 8th overall. With the Women having 13 teams in total and the mens having 29 Teams in total, Great Britain certainly made a big impression on International Rafting, for such a small country our Mens team managed to finish above such counties as USA, Canada, Slovenia, Australia and Mexico.
A successful day was followed my much celebration that evening as you would expect...
A little bit of 'blue steel' at the closing partyBring on 2009.
Bryony with flag
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