Freestyle World Championships
By Gerd Serrasolses
After the WW Grand Prix and my last days in Canada I flew home and drove to Sort with my friend Parra. We did a little creek race on the weekend, based on Team Race, Slalom and Sprint. We got first in the team race, and I was third in the sprint, but then I missed a gate on the slalom, that made my overall ranking drop a lot instead of being second or third.
Anyway my head was somewhere else. On the next morning I flew to Plattling Germany, where the Freestyle World Championships were about to st. I arrived and had a few good sessions, and on Friday we drove to Lienz, Austria to take part in the Dolomiten Rodeo. We arrived quite late due to a few problems… the roof rack with our boats was flying into the middle of the Autobahn, and after that the car broke down and we had to replace the battery… it took us about 9 hours to get to Lienz instead of 4-5 hours, not bad!
After a little bit of training the next morning we did the competition. I paddled well in the semis and finals, and finally ended up in second positions behind Peter Csonka. After the comp we drove back to Plattling for some more training. The hole got busier and busier every day with people form all over the World.
The opening ceremony was on Monday with 230 athletes from more than 25 different countries ready to go. The competition went really well for everyone of the Sickline Team. As Peter said: Everyone made different cuts.
On Saturday afternoon we had the finals. I was super happy to be in the finals, as that was my first Freestyle World Championships finals ever. My first two rides weren't any good, luckily I managed to improve my third ride. At the end I was in 5th place. I'm very happy with my result after such a hard and difficult winter with injuries and knowing I can still do so much better… so it'll have to be next time! Congratulations to all the new World Champions and medallists!
I want to thank everyone who has helped me out!! All my buddies from the Team and from everywhere in the World, you are great! Thanks Jacko for being such a great coach, Quim Fontané for keep pushing and developing freestyle kayak in Spain, Tresa for being there and helping a lot with everything, Mikel Sarasola for coming and making such cool videos, all of you reading and Alicia for being the best and always there!
Thanks adidas and other sponsors to help me out so I can keep on follow my dream!
Last but not least, thanks to Robert Sommer for organizing such a great event and to the ICF guys and Lluis Rabaneda for making this Worlds the best possible!
More info, results, videos.
Gerd