Friday, 10 July 2009

3th Euro cup in Lienz

Lienz is sweet small town surrounded by colossal mountains. The nature here is so beautiful! You have many options what to do. You can find here rivers for beginner and also for most experienced kayakers. Many tourist visit Lienz during the whole year. Skiing, hiking, rafting, kayaking, paragliding… everything is possible here. So this is the perfect place for organizing such as international event like euro cup is. The playspot is situated on river Drau. Big, powerful hole and really cold water! During the Euro cup was also competition ,,carton boats’’ witch promised good show to see. Because qualifications started already in Friday, people were gathering in Lienz in Wednesday and Thursday to have enough time for practicing. In qualification had Peter best rides but unfortunately in his last ride by performing Tricky woo, he dislocated his thumb. He ended up first but we weren’t sure if he can paddle next day. Saturday was semifinals for K1M, K1W and K1MJ and than finals for every category. Peter decide to paddle even though his finger was blue and hurt. In semifinal he had the best ride and won with score around 1000 points. Women’s semifinal, from my point of view was quite hard. The Hole punish for every mistake. I went to final from first position but my ride wasn’t perfect. Final was really good show. In top five with Peter, Simon Strohmeier and James Bebington it was big fight for first place. Everything determine last ride of three. Unfortunately Peter got second right after James Bebington. The score different between guys was really small!!! The prize giving ceremony was in nice restaurant. We got for entry fee tickets for dinner and drinks. I think dinner has surprise everyone. We got big portion of steak, chicken, beef and sausage with chips, it was good end up after great long day. On top of it we got for firsts three places prize money what is not usual but it delighted us so much! Peter was little sad that we wasn’t together on top but I think he can be happy that we could paddle because in the evening he wasn’t able to hold cup with his finger. After ceremony we hurried up to home. Peter went to doctor next day and doctor told him that he can’t paddle for three weeks. So Peter took break one week and that was the longest time what I was able to hold him home without paddling…

some pictures from Hanka Bubnikova, thank you.









See you on rivers.
Nina

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