Teams scoop local award...

After the success of the World Championships in Bosnia, the teams were nominated for 'Amateur Team of the Year' at the Rushcliffe Borough Council Sports Awards. Held yearly, the awards recognize the sporting achievements from youngsters, coaches and teams from the local community. Alongside the teams in the category were The Nottingham Rugby League Team and the Veteran section of West Bridgford Tennis Club, who have both improved throughout the year and won countless titles along the way. However, the judges couldn't count out the European and World titles won by both teams over the past 12 months and awarded the Amateur Team of the Year to the Rafters.

The teams collecting more silver wear at the sports awards.



A rowing demonstration was given in a relay format with Adam and Jimbo the anchor leg on opposing teams, a 45 second all out effort to be crowned 'random sporting intermission show' champions?! Adam made a valiant come back after receiving the baton behind, but couldn't over come the powerhouse Jimbo.


You can't leave them alone for 5 minutes!?!


Check back next week, as Pas and Zach return from the China invitational rafting event.

Hey everyone, come see how good we look?!

Here are a couple of videos put together by one of the members of the Kiwi team. They show the best sprint teams in the world dominating proceedings in Bosnia at the World Championships. The videos are of the mens team but the girls have sprung up in the middle schooling the World Overall Champions, Canada, enjoy.


The Head to Head, through the rounds



The head to Head Final

World Championship - The Slalom and the aftermath...a supporters eye view

A view up the slalom course, floodlights and all. Charles Stapleton

The evening slalom event was the first time we'd seen the team's in action since the head to head, having 'duckied' out of the 14 hours coach journey to Tara, to restore our vocal chords. We were nearly as anxious as the teams as we found our 'spot' in the spectacular grandstand built on the side of a gorge. Flags & banners proudly displayed, we watched the lower ranked teams heading down tricky course as the sun set & the floodlights came on.

A view from one of the grandstands looking up the slalom course

Where the girls called home for the slalom event, although when they had finished, there were no tents!!

We were in an good spot, looking over gates 7,8,9 and 10. The first few teams went down, with some strategically missing out a couple of gates, taking the 50 second penalties instead of spending the equivalent time fighting to get through the difficult up gate 8.
The Slovenians, obviously feeling outdone by our cheering during the Head to Head turned up in their hundreds, cheering their teams through. We gave them our best efforts when the ladies came down, looking smooth & impressive through the gates, putting down a really solid first run.
On the bank we waited in tenterhooks for the men...we'd already done the double on Tuesday - could we do it again on the last night of the competition? Unfortunately, the boys used some unique tactics for their first run, missing their line and subsequently a gate...
We didn't know what to do, could the boys recover their focus for their final run of the World Rafting Champs or would the pressure of needing a clean run get to them...?

The girls checking out the improvements, ready to do battle

Ninks studying the changes in her mind

This time, the second round took a controversial turn for the ladies team, the judge on gate 11 gave our ladies a 50 second penalty, took it away, gave it again shrugging his shoulders..? It was an impressive, slick run and it was a shame for their competition to end on such a note from an undecided judge. Rightly or wrongly, the penalty was given. In our eyes the ladies had given a medal winning performance, and we were very proud to have been part of their cheering team. All we could do now is wait to find out where that put them overall.

Not quite recovered from the ladies we waited (and prayed) for the men...come on boys - we know you can do it, just make it clean...and boy, did they!! It was one of the best runs of the night - quick, slick & with some impossible looking hanging draw strokes, they fully nailed it this time. But where would they finish...?!





Thats the way to do a slalom, the boys showing how to 'up' gate 2

If your waiting for a bus, there's no better way to do it than sing!!

In typical Banja Luka style we were herded, athletes & fans, to wait for the buses to the closing ceremony for the presentations. After 45 minutes and our own renditions of 500 miles, place your hands and you're the best around we clambered on ready for a 5 minute shower & change and off to the party...it was now 12.:30am!!
The GB teams were popular winners of the Head 2 Head and we're cheered by all when they collected their medals. unfortunately there were no anthems & flag raising but both teams made the most of their moments on stage.

The girls preparing to storm the podium

The girls collecting their medals are Sprint Champions of the World

Off to the podium we go, err ... follow me kids!!

Sprint Champions of the World

The boys though, didn't come back & a member of another team (i think the Germans) congratulated us on our boys finishing 3rd overall...? It was the first we'd heard, and when I found them next to the stage for confirmation, they were confused & didn't really believe it. In fact they didn't want to believe it until it had been confirmed...and it was about 5 minutes later when they were called onto stage to collect medals for third place overall!! What a result, and what an achievement!! Our boys looked happier than the Brazilians who won for the second time.

The mens overall podium, reigning champions Brazil, the full timers Japan and Raft Club from UK, UK!

By the time the presentations were over, it was 1.30am. With the party finishing at 2 we gathered as much Nektar as possible and took the party back to Camp GB to celebrate in style!

Jimbo showing off the medal haul, trophies and all

Ruth - Team GB Supporter

World Championships - Endurance

Racers on the Tara Gorge, racing!

After all the fun and games of the day before, the World Sprint Champions awoke early, around 3:30am, to get the bus to the bus to take them to the Tara ... The story continues ...

After 4 hours sleep the bus to Banja Luka was quiet, on arrival we felt like everyone was looking at us, it's a very different feeling when your leading! We mounted our bus and tried to make it look as busy as possible so that it stayed as 'our' bus. This made the 7 hours journey to Foca much more bearable, especially as we passed crammed buses! On our arrival in Foca, we paraded the streets in super hot temperatures as once again the crowds came to see the teams and entertainment put on by the town. We were then herded (as we tended to be on this trip) to the camp, shown to our accommodation, lovely little wooden huts, then herded once again on to the river for another trip down the stunning canyon. This time however, we started in a thunder storm and torrential rain, we revised our lines and made it to the bottom as quickly as possible to keep warm but conserving as much strenght as possible.

Which little house do you want to stay in!?!

This is the view from the restaurant, the Norwegian girls and the river!!

We awoke early for breakfast and a team meeting to arrange the plan for the day, the mini van heaven met us promptly at 8, we then warmed up and stretched to save time at the get in before departing at 9am?! Even though the start of the race was put back half an hour, it is surprising how much there is to do to prepare you boat, this made it seem like the race was upon us before we knew it. After a quick warm up we were summonsed to the start and asked to choose our lane, all looked very similar but we felt that trap 5 was closer to the finish, thus better for us! This shocked all the other nations as they tried to get in the faster water higher up the river. We then once again destroyed everyone off the line and easily took the lead as the others battled for water, we survived a broken paddle and held the lead as the others battled between themselves.

Mini van heaven, ready to take the teams to the water

The BIG BOYS stapes and jimbo try to fly?!

Rosie pretending to be a cat, Bry pretending to skip in the early morning warm up!

The boys much to the shock of the starters chose lane 5, they then stormed out of the blocks showing they were the fastest starters in the world and that that was the lane to go from!

We managed to hold the lead for the first fifteen minutes of the race until in one rapid all four teams came past in a short period of time, very strange how it happen and very demoralising. We managed to hold our race together and paddle the way we wanted to, we held onto the group and took Austria in one of the later rapids to finish fourth in the group. We were happy with the way we had paddled but for me a little disappointed to have finished in 11th, saying that, it was close having 15 teams all within a minute after 48 minutes of racing.

The girls starting at the front of their heat also chose trap 5 after seeing the start we had, they too managed to take the lead going into rapid 1, but faced a lot of pressure as there was little fighting behind them. After fighting to hold the lead, they dropped down the group trying to stay in contact, but didn't feel strong in the boat. After staying in the middle of the pack for much of the race Canada surged past in sight of the line. They finished in 6th place as the Japanese came from one of the slower heats and destroyed them all, winning by over a minute.

The girls showing the rest of the world their clean heels at the start of the endurance

The end of the girls endurance, this is the most favouritist part of the race, it's over!!

Both Teams were a little disappointed with the results from the race but with the racing so close, it was good to see we had caught the teams in terms of times. We find the endurance one of the hardest events to train for, not that we don't try, the lady bay run (from the water sports centre in Nottingham to the city and back) is perfect distance, but we lack good quality constant rapids to get a good rhythm to conserve out strenght. We did learn a lot out there and hope to put this into good use for future competitions.

One last word on the Tara, go there and love it like we did, a true visual gem!

Adam

The Tara Canyon baby!

This is the road ... to hell and the start!

World Championships - Sprint, Women

Big Brother is watching, all the head to head runs were filmed from all sorts of funny angles!

Memoirs of a lady champion by Georgie P.

In the ladies event, our first race was with Latvia and we went in very confident taking the win. Netherlands who had the fastest time trial were up against Japan (the only professional team) so we hoped that Japan would win meaning we wouldn’t have to race the sprint winners. Sadly they didn’t, but as with all our races, we secured the fastest time meaning we had lane choice for every race! We chose our favoured start position safe in the knowledge that we have a very strong start. We also had an old score to settle from last year’s European Championships in Austria where we pushed the Netherlands over the finish line securing their win. After a battle at the top of the rapid we managed to hold our line where others had previously been pushed into an eddy and we raced on to an elated win.

The girls ready to destroy Latvia in the first head to head round

The girls prepare for the next round of head to head carnage

Up next in the semi finals, we were pitted against Canada who had also beaten us in the sprint time trial. This race was for a potential bronze medal position. As it ended up we had silver by the time we won this race! A top result from our disappointing start in the time trial positioning 5th. So we headed up for our last run in the final against Slovakia. The Slovaks are well known for their focus, brute strength, competiveness and their lack of friendly banter. We had beaten them once before in the European Champs so knew we were in with a chance by staying positive. Floating down to the start line we were surprised to find that we had pole position once again, as we were expecting to take second choice and were weighing up our options for a battle. Our main fighting tool were all the supporters who came over from Britain with us. The amount of cheering on the start line was a real confidence booster, followed by Ruth’s ruthless recruitment of a whole stand to chant “UK UK” as we came down the rapid into the nasty boily section all the way to the finish line.


The girls charging hard infront of the chanting crowd

Winning the final was incredible, topped only by then cheering our boys into the same position. As both teams walked back up to our supporters’ camp we were mobbed by reporters, TV crews, other team’s congratulations and a surprise firm handshake from the British ambassador no less. An incredible day for both British teams who refused to be outdone by each other!!


Champions, champions!!

World Championships - Sprint, men

The World At Our Feet….

After an incredible opening ceremony last night consisting of 45,000 spectators and a parade through Baja Luka, today (Tuesday 19th) was the start of our World Championship Campaign. The championships began with the sprint head to head competition. After an initial time trial teams are seeded then race each other head to head down a fast stretch of challenging white water. After finishing 8th in the time trial we were pitted against the Germans who had a poor time trial and finished 24th. The Germans went off the start line on the less favourable left side very hard to push level with us going into the main rapid. We stuck to our line on the rapid still neck and neck but emerged from the rapid on faster water to take an emphatic win over world class competitors.





The Strong first round opposition of the Germans and the tussle all the way to the bottom of the rapid


For our next round we were drawn against the Cost Ricans, still pumped from our big win against the Germans we shot off the line from taking priority on the right to leave them standing off the start, from which they never recovered. We were now down to the last eight an incredible feat for the team and in a position we had never been in before. Our next pairing was against the Bulgarians, these chaps are quite literally enormous, I glanced across on the start line to my opposite number and immediately wished I hadn’t due to the imposing size of his arms! However the British determination shone through once more as we flew out of the start to put ourselves a slither ahead of the Bulgarians, a position we once again managed to hold until the line. We were in the top four and one race from a medal!!



The beefy Bulgarians getting schooled off the line


Our semi final put us against the Austrian team but due to our battle with the Bulgarians we had lost valuable time and the Austrians were given lane choice off the start. They took the faster right lane from which no team had been beaten from so far in the competition. We had one choice, go hard off the start and push them right as the Germans had done to us, take the hit through the big rapid and hope for the best in the final straight to the line. Our boat shot off the line with a super human effort from all the team to go level with the Austrian team, we executed our plan with military precision to push them right on the rapid so much so that they hit the rock and eddied out. We took on a lot of water through the rapid but powered on through to the finish line to re-write what was possible coming from the less fortunate left side, we had just won our first World Championship medal, but the question now was what colour! We had made it to the final of the Rafting World Championships against the strong and powerful team from the USA. Since our first epic battle with the Germans there had been a mood of excitement and positivity simmering on the raft, there was no way we were going to lose. As we went all guns blazing off the start line in the final in front of a grand stand packed with supporters and 2 million Bosnians watching on television the boat flew through the water to pass the Americans with only the smallest of contact. We went out harder than ever and there was no way we were going to fall behind, as the finish line neared the crowd roared and we paddled our way to a Gold medal in the World Rafting Championships, get in!

Words by The Zach Man.

Opening Ceremony

After the final few days of training, returning from Montenegro and the Tara Canyon, to the Vrbas river to make the last few tweaks to the lines on the sprint and slalom courses, the teams prepared for the opening ceremony to be held in the host city of Banja Luka. All 55 teams lined the main road through the town to be greeted by thousands of locals watching local Bosnian sports demonstrated by local school children. We then marched through the street to the opening party followed by a tradional Bosnian welcoming.

Bosnia 2009 Worlds - Training Days

Both the Mens and Ladies teams have made it safe and sound to Bosnia in preparation for the World Championships 2009. The base for the event is Banja Luka in the North of Bosnia at the Kanjon Rafting Centre. The teams have already paddled the sprint and slalom sections held in the local valley trying to key into the right lines and quickest routes down the rapids. On Wednesday the teams headed down to Montenegro on a 7 hour bus ride to paddle the endurance river, the Tara which runs through a beautiful gorge headed with tree lined limestone outcrops, some reaching 1000 meters. After two runs down the 17km section, both teams boarded the bus for the 7 hour journey back. The remaining days will be spent around the rafting centre training hard and resting up ready for the event to start on Tuesday the 19th. Stay tuned for more pictures and updates.

All the following pictures are taken from the sprint rapid, a lovely run in to a big wave train