National Team Trials 2008

Full-time whitewater training for the Canadian National Team Trials is underway!

In the next few weeks, you’ll find me at the U.S. National Whitewater Centre in Charlotte, North Carolina, where I’ll be training and racing as much as possible in preparation for the trials, happening this April 24-27, 2008.

After a long winter recovering from a serious shoulder injury I sustained during a pre-Olympic test race last August, I’m back in the water and ready to fight for my spot at the ICF World Cup in Troja, Czech Republic this June, and at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing this August.

Stay tuned for more pre-trial training updates and race results. I look forward to seeing some of you in Charlotte at the end of this month!

I’d also like to give a big shout-out to my 2008 sponsors: Canopy Corporation, Limelight Advertising & Design, and Technolutions Company for their generous support, which has helped make all of this travel, training and world-class competition possible — I couldn’t have made it here without you guys!

Slovenian Open, Tacen

Name of Course: Kajak Kanu Klub Tacen River Sava, Slovenia (site of the World Cup, July 7 – 8, 2007) Half-artificial, half-natural race course.

Event: Slovenian Open, Class C International Event, 15 countries competing. I finished 15th and 13th.

Slovenia is one of my favourite countries in all my travels. It has everything: beautiful mountains, many pristine rivers with impressive rapids, and beautiful coast on the Adriatic. The area we were in was countryside, but quite prosperous. Tacen is about a 20-minute drive from downtown Ljubljana, the Capital, one of the most beautiful cities I have been to.

Tacen has one of the most exiting and challenging slalom courses on the circuit, with a impressive 10m slanting drop at the top of the course, and highly technical swirling water after that requires speed and aggressiveness to stay on line and not slide out. I was having quite a tough time training during the week leading up to the race. We were practicing very hard courses, and the river doesn’t allow for any hesitation. Errors are magnified on large water such as this, and it’s easy to blow out. Fortunately I feel I performed much better in the races than in training! I still have a lot to work on, and I’m making progress.

There were two separate races on Saturday and Sunday, and points over the two qualified the top ten athletes in each category for a one run great final Sunday afternoon. After cold, wind and thunderstorms during training the whole week, we got beautiful sunny weather just in time for the race. The stands were packed with spectators, most of which were armed with some sort of noisemaker device to cheer on the racers.

On both days I raced in the afternoon after watching the men’s kayaks and C2s. My two runs on Saturday were within a second of each other in raw time. My first run was slightly off line, and I touched a few gates, but I felt strong. The second run was a lot more precise and focused, I fixed several mistakes from the first run, and didn’t touch any of the gates. I finished 15th.The second day’s course was much more challenging, and in the morning I watched many of the top men’s kayaks struggle and miss gates on the difficult move at the top drop. My preparation in the morning felt good. However funny things happened to me later on. I was sitting in the start pool, after an hour of warming up and visualization, ready to go. About a minute before my first run I felt something crawling on my leg. I opened my spray deck and there was a great big spider inside my boat! I jumped out on the shore and scrambled around trying to catch it. The other girls were like hurry up Sara, you’re next, you’re going to miss you start! I emptied my boat of water, jumped back in, put my deck back on and sprinted to the start gate just as the timer was beeping for me to go. I had been warming up for about an hour with the spider in my boat but didn’t notice till like a minute before the start. If that would have happened 30 seconds later I might have missed my start!

The run actually wasn’t so bad, even though my focus definitely wasn’t where it should have been, thanks to the rogue spider. I paddled tentatively, correcting and wasn’t quite in the groove . Twice during the run I did bizarre mistakes that required loops and spins that weren’t exactly planned. Michal said that for the second run I needed to just step it up a notch, don’t worry so much about being smooth, and paddle stronger. The second run I was a lot more focused and confident, I paddled much more aggressively. Even though I touched five gates, my raw time was 13 seconds faster. I am happy with my placement, I finished 13th.

We will be training here in Tacen tomorrow, and then on Wednesday morning we will drive to Merano Italy, for the last of the Class C International Races. After that it’s a week of holiday at my aunt’s house in Ruda Italy, a much-needed rest.

26-27 May – Soca River, Slovenia

We drove for hours through insane windy roads and beautiful mountain passes to get to the small town of Bovec, famous for rafting, canyoning and ski resorts. The racecourse was a natural unaltered stretch of river, very different from most of the other courses we travel to, which are generally completely artificial. It is a very different feeling to race on natural course.

We trained on Saturday, getting used to the new course, and learning the water. Sunday’s race was a Class C International Race, with 8 countries competing. I finished 6th in a field of 21. Full results are available at www.kajak-zveza.si

There was thunderstorms and pouring rain all day, and the water level rose about a meter during the race. Gates had to be moved and raised and it was a bit chaotic to be honest. Beautiful river and good friends made it a fun race though. It was a very physical course, quite different from the artificial courses I am used to where the water can do more of the work.

My 1st run was solid, but a bit sluggish. I had two time errors, easily fixed for the second run. It was a very physical course, quite different from the artificial courses I am used to where the water can do more of the work. For the second run the water level was significantly higher than the first, so the course was different in some places and the current faster in general. I had a 5 second mistake at the third gate due to different water I wasn’t expecting, but after that I was on track and had good lines.

The K1s and C2s raced in the afternoon, and there were more delays and problems with the water level. 25 Mens’ kayaks had to redo their second runs, as the water had come up so much that some of the gate poles were completely underwater. Some commented later that as they went down the second run, the water was so different that all their landmarks had dissapeared and they had to make it up as they went.

After the race we drove directly to Tacen Slovenia. We will be here training for the week, and racing on the weekend.

Training in Augsburg Germany

May 23, 2007

Augsburg is one of my favourite places to train in the World. The weather has been perfect and sunny. We are staying at the hotel right next to the whitewater channel, in the middle of lush forest. The facility here is an athlete’s dream come true, it’s gorgeous. There are three whitewater channels of clean clear water surrounded by grass and great big trees. It’s complete with gym, pool, tennis courts, boathouse, hotel, restaurant, right next to a beautiful forest full of trails for running and biking. The German National Team lives permanently in a section of the hotel.

In the two days we have been here training, I feel like I have made some huge breakthroughs in my technical abilities. This course is extremely pushy and surges quite a bit, and requires a slightly different strategy than other courses. In these two days we have put in a total of 8 hours on the water, and I’m improving every workout. Training in these summer months is focused on maintaining the strength and fitness gained over the winter, and improving the technical, mental and strategic aspects of the sport.

In addition to Michal, I have also been working with a new National Coach Kurt Braunlich. I really like him, he’s patient, and encouraging. I like his coaching style; it’s great to get a new take on things. He’s getting us to do moves I’ve never done before, switching it up making it interesting and challenging us. Kurt and Michal make a good team. I have been training these days with Jamie and Adam Cutts who paddle double canoe (C2) also from Ottawa.

I am building my repertoire of skills every day, and every workout adds to my confidence going into the next international races in Slovenia and Italy, and the World Cups. I am really enjoying training, I live for the “AHA!” moments. I’ve been on the water 8 hours in two days, and then spent about 3 hours analyzing video with coaches.

My brother Julian (National Junior Team) and Canadian High Performance Director Sven Pinkert just arrived this afternoon, I’m exited to have my brother with me, he’s my favourite training partner.

17-18 May Slovak Open, World Series Competition

This marks the start of the European Tour 07. We will be travelling to five different countries, and competing in seven international races.

I arrived to Munich on Monday, May 14, along with two other athletes and two coaches. We arrived to Bratislava Slovakia Tuesday evening, after stressful negotiations with Air Cargo, and an anxious day of waiting in a hotel for my boat to be shipped. Flying with a 3.5m kayak quite a headache, the airlines and cargo companies are far from helpful. There were three days before the race to train and get used to one of the biggest most challenging slalom courses in the world, and I was still recovering from jet-lag. My training was good over the few days before the race. We paddled twice a day on the whitewater, and I feel I improved a little technically for this big water course leading up to the race.

The Cunovo Whitewater Centre is spectacular. There is a diversion of the Danube beside a dam, with two artificial whitewater channels that cross in the middle, easily switched to make a while new race course. This time it was running top right to bottom left. I really like the course, it’s fast, a lot of volume, and at the bottom of the left channel there is the infamous 5m drop fondly called “Niagara”. It feels good to be back.

There were two days of racing. On the first day was the qualification race, two runs added together. I raced in the morning. The course was fairly open and straightforward, and I was confident with the lines. My first run felt stable and on track, with one silly three second error close to the bottom of the course. My second run was quicker, I fixed the mistakes from the first run, but got stuck for several seconds in the hole between the last gates, probably the hardest one on the course. Both runs were clean, no penalties added to my time. I ended up in 18th place in the qualification, within my goal of top 20. I am quite happy with the race overall. I feel I can still improve quite a bit. In the afternoon I watched all the men’s kayaks and C2s, and took a whole card of pictures.

The next day were semis and finals. The course was much harder. My semifinal run was alright up until the very end. I was slightly offline in the “Niagara” drop and was swept downstream right past the last gate. It took me about 10 seconds to paddle back upstream to get it, my race was done there. I finished 22nd.

After the race I watched video of the race with my coach, comparing my runs to Jana Dukatova of Slovakia, the winner of both qualification and the final. It was very interesting to see, and I am working every day to try to paddle like that myself. Every time I watch racers at this level I have a renewed admiration and respect. Watching the finals in the afternoon was amazing. Across from the stands there was a large digital results board and a giant colour screen with live coverage of the whole run so spectators in the stands got the whole show. It was a great race for Slovakia, their National Team took home all four Gold Medals.

There were cash prizes for all categories, and the winner with the biggest time gap ahead of second place received a Nissan Micra Sport, complete with World Series Slalom stickers. Nissan had all kinds of cars on display beside the course. It was C1 paddler Michal Martikan of Slovakia, was the overall winner, a full was 5.84 seconds ahead of second place. Funny enough though, I hear that since he is sponsored by Mercedes there is a conflict, and he wont be able to drive the car.

Monday morning we are driving back to Germany, for a week of training on the 1972 Olympic course in Augsburg. This is week one of the two month European Racing Circuit 2007.

The Beginning

Warming up for the first run of last weekend’s races I was the most nervous and jumpy I’ve ever been on a start line. I guess it worked! I have qualified for the Canadian Senior Team.

There were three days of combined races in Charlotte NC, which served as Team Selection for both Canada and the US. It was an amazing event, with the very best slalom racers from all over North America, spectators completely covering the riverbanks, and perfect sunny weather. I’m the only girl on the Canadian Team this year, as I was the only one that managed the tight percentage off the mens’ kayaks time. The benchmark was David Ford, 99 World Champion and four time Olympian.

I leave in just over a week to Slovakia, as I continue the nomadic lifestyle. There are nine international races this season including World Cups in Europe, World Championships in Brazil, and a pre-Olympic event in Beijing for which I have been pre-selected.

Team Canada 2007*:
K1: David Ford, Pierre Levesque, John Hastings
C1: James Cartwright-Garland, Craig Allen, Spencer Pomeroy
K1W: Sara Potvin-Bernal
C2: Mike Holroyd/Tom Hewitt

*Full results are available at WhitewaterCanada.ca

All the hard work (and recovery) is starting to pay off. A big thank you to my coaches Michal Staniszewski, Sven Pinkert, Jiri Prskavec and Adam Douglas. Thanks to Larry Norman and Rich Childs for helping me understand the importance of rest and recovery. And thanks Mom and Dad for driving 16 hours in the little Smart car to be shore support!