British Freestyle Championships 2009

By Nicola Beeby

British Freestyle Championships 2009: Showcasing talent in freestyle kayaking.

So the 3rd and 4th of October saw the annual freestyle championships at HPP Nottingham. In the week leading up to the event the 2nd hole had been changed to give a nice retentive hole with a bit of a pit in the middle, this was good as it meant no one had much of a chance to practice on it so there was no home advantage. The event was organised by Alpkit so they were there bright and early setting everything up, the new scoring system and the old computer programme didn’t work together so the start was slightly later than planned after Bill had made a new spreadsheet to enter scores on to. The boater cross and extreme slalom were put back till Sunday and the day consisted of everyone’s heats (there was more at stake than a place in Sundays finals it doubled as the 1st selection event for the 2010 freestyle team). The weather was rather windy and seemed to be affecting some peoples rides but everyone did their 3 runs and then it was off to the party at the Rugby Club. This started off slowly but soon heated up when the Alpkit gnomes came out (not sure where this game came from ask the Alpkit boys!) but the idea was to put one as far from the wall as possible with out touching the floor, soon many were challenging each other to try and get the furthest!

Some went home for a early night and others stayed and partied, but most people were up bright and early for Sunday mornings boater cross, where it was head to head down to the bottom 1st one wins, (some of us got disqualified for running round bits). After this it was on to the semi finals where the weather was much kinder and then for what turned into my favourite part of the weekend the old dogs new tricks as all the old topo’s and full face Romer helmets came out they all put on exceptional performances and made us all laugh a lot :) It was then on to the finals which were hard fought finally the results were through and congratulations went to James Bebbington (mens) Jenny Chrimes (ladies) Stu Parry (Junior mens) Gabby Bates (junior ladies) and Chris Banbridge (C1)

All in all it was excellent weekend, many thanks to Alpkit for all the organisation and to Bill who saved the day with the computer system!
:)

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