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Jessica's Kayak Slalom Photo Album |
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PHOTOS (soon to come) On July 12th, two days after Junior Worlds in Slovenia, I flew straight to the great Northwest for the U.S. Cup Races and Junior Olympics. I met up with my coach Chris Weigand’s FRPA group as well as a new crowd that was training with us, the Chinese Senior Team. It was such an awesome cultural experience getting to know these wonderful people and the fact that all fifteen paddlers with the exception of the translator couldn’t speak English, it was like charades 24/7, constantly gesturing or acting out and making noises to communicate. It was quite comical. We learned pieces of each other’s language and I can even sing a song and count to a 100. I must admit counting in Chinese is a little rough. I actually grew to love it.
The first U.S. Cup and Age Group Nationals were held in North Bend, Washington. The river was a little shallow in places. It started out with some whitewater down the first drop from gates one to six then it slowed down to moving water from seven to eleven then finishing with more whitewater. The course that was set for the first race, Age Group Nationals was pretty straight forward making it a speed course. The U.S. Cup course the next day was very similar with some different offsets and ups. I got First Place in both races!
The next race location for the U.S. Cup 2 and Junior Olympics was in Chilliwack, British Columbia, in the Chilliwack River. This river, I fell in love with. It’s by far, my favorite slalom course I’ve paddled. It’s not only that the river has a variety of features and busy whitewater but the river and its surroundings are beautiful. The course set for the race was definitely technical and full of offsets. In the Junior Olympics race, I started out a slow first run that put me in third so in between runs, I made sure to analyze the course and study where I lost time. I kept Chris’ encouraging words to go for it in mind for my second run. It must have helped because I broke 100 seconds on my second run! My fast second run bumped me up to finishing First Place!
The next day was the U.S. Cup 2. For this course, they spread out the offsets further and included a tricky S-turn gate. My runs were fairly consistent keeping within two seconds of each other, I had the fastest women’s time of the day as well, therefore, I got First Place! These races were another bundle of race experience that I can pocket in my memory to learn from in the future.
After the race was done and awards were given out, I packed my things and hopped on a plane to Charlotte, North Carolina where my new house by the river welcomed me. Currently I’m traveling around with Butter, training for the U.S. Nationals in Charlotte which will be held at the new Whitewater Park. Since there’s a delay in the opening of the Whitewater Park, we headed up to Washington D.C. to train at the Dickerson Course. The water was boiling hot, one day, it even shot up to 115 degrees. Since it was a danger hazard that day, they had to close the course, however, on the cooler days, despite the warm water, we had excellent workouts with awesome whitewater. After ten days in D.C., we drove back to Charlotte, NC. I’m confident that I’m ready for the U.S. Nationals!
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JUNIOR OLYMPICS, U.S. CUPS & PAN AMERICAN GAMES July 14-26, 2006 & August 20, 2006 Washington State, British Columbia, & Ontario Washington, D.C. for training
“The turquoise-blue Chilliwack River in British Columbia — the best and most beautiful slalom course I’ve ever paddled!” |
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The Canadian Junior National Team. (Photo by a Canadian). |
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