Prague World cup week

Hi everyone, well its getting close to the first of the two Olympic selection races where I have to place in the top 16 nations to secure my spot to race for New Zealand at the Olympics in August. The first race is on 20th June in Prague, Czech Republic and the second on 27th June in Tacen, Slovenia.
Training has been going well and I am feeling fresh and ready to race my best in Prague and secure the spot there, so that I can travel to China and use the last training camp before the games to prepare and get myself in the best shape before the games begin on 11th August.
I travelled to Europe in early June and have spent time training at Liptovsky and Bratslava in Slovakia, Prague, Veltrusy, Roudnice in the Czech Republic, and Augsburg in Germany. So I feel I have done a lot of training and really know my boat and how it feels on the water and how to make it go fast!!
I have the qualification races on Friday the 20th June, then the semifinal and final runs on June 21st. So I will update you with how the final results pan out, and whether I travel straight to Beijing, or via Tacen to Beijing.
Thanks to everyone for their support and especially First Mortgage Trust (Tga), Skeggs Foundation (Dun) and the New Zealand Dental Association.

Augsburg

We are now in augsburg, hanging out and taking it easy for the week leading into the first world cup week in Prague. The city here is really nice and the weather has been pretty good, 29 degrees on tuesday, rained yesterday and its looking good today. We have done one session on the course, been swiming and eaten schwaben center kebaps. We will head back to prague on sunday to meet up with the rest of the kiwis and the final preparation into the world cup.
We are staying at kathryns house which is really nice, and her parents are looking after us, we made them an awesome kiwi style pavlova last night which turned out pretty well!! especially for a first time effort.
Cody the Skoda is still going strong and getting us around (touch wood) and the stereo is still pumping which is the main thing!

Update

Well not to much has happened here in Prague since the last post. The training is going well, really feeling like i know the course here, and by the end of the week should have done basically all the moves on this course!!
The canadians are here, and the Austrians and Italians have just arrived.
Over the weekend we had a race in roudnice, a small town about 40 mins from prague. It is a really nice course, and is the site for the junior worlds later in the year, on july 27th i think... So racing there went pretty well, did some good things and had a clean run, which was a positive!! as touches will be killer out here at the world cup in prague.
So we train here in prague until the end of the week and then head to Augsburg to chill out for a few days before coming back to prague for the world cup and to meet up with the rest of the team.
Well i am hoping that the race here in prague goes well, because if i need to go to Tacen to secure the spot then i will miss the last training camp in Beijing and have to go to the Olympics without having ever paddled on the course. Lots of the the other paddlers went to beijing on friday and it sounds like its a pretty big and physical course. Looking super forward to being able to paddle there!!!

Veltrusy

So the race in veltrusy over the weekend has happened and the racing was pretty exciting. All the classes were won by the czechs.
Racing was quite hard on a course which i had never seen let alone paddled, but it went ok, i finished in 5th so that was ok.
Today we were supposed to go to tranvka, a course in czech, a big water course which only flows a few times each year, but we have struck some troubles with the car as the lights were left on, and now we cant get it going...maybe we will get there next tuesday?? So instead we will spend the day on the troja course here in prague.
We have one more race this coming weekend before the Prague world cup, it is in Roudinice, a small town about 60 minutes from Prague, so we will try and get a day of paddling there before the races. Also this weekend there is a money race in Solkan, Slovenia, 8000 euro prize money!!

Training

Training is going pretty good in prague, just lots of whitewater sessions, basically two every day so feeling pretty tired! We are heading to veltrusy for a race tomorrow for the weekend, its only about 30 mins from prague, so thats pretty sweet, not to much driving.
Next tuesday i am looking at going to Tranvaka with the czechs which should be fun, its supposed to be a course of similiar size to beijing!! so should be super fun after prague!!
Well this weekend will be good for a well deserved break from the course here at prague, next week i have one more hard block and a race in Roudinice and then i have a break in Augsburg for a few days and then it is the build up for the World cup here in Prague.
The rest of the NZL team arrive next sunday week, the 15th June

Prague

Well we have had a slight change of plan and have now ended up in Prague, which probably isnt too bad considering this is the course where i have my final Olympic selection race.
We travelled from Liptovsky to Bratslava to do a weeks training there, but we were hit with a cost of 15 euro a session, and when we were planning on two sessions a day this adds up fast!!
So we jumped back into the Skoda and drove to Prague where we arrived last night and are now staying at the boat house. This is really good for training as it is less than 50 metres from the start of the course, and only a train ride into the center of Prague town.
I will go to a small race this weekend in Susucie with the czechs and then next weekend in Roudinice. During the week i will stay in Prague training on the course.
Training here already feels pretty good, and the water feels alot smaller than Liptovsky and Brataslava. I will be here for just over two weeks and then head to augsburg, Germany

Finals

Well there was some very exciting racing here today with the Slovak ladies Olympic K1 spot being contested. Elena Kaliska kept her composure to secure herself a ticket to the games in Beijing! Well done Elena!!!
Unfortunantly I had a shocker in the 2nd half of the course!! After having a really tight and sharp top section I broke out above gate 10 and then had to resurc for it and it all went down hill from there. I finished in 29th place, quite disappointed, i really thought i was going to put down a much better run!!
The other racing was really spectactular with Martician taking out the C1 title again in style, with more than 7 seconds to spare on 2nd, Slafkovsky, 3rd was Mataj Benus
K1 Womens, 1st Elena Kaliska, 2nd Jana Dukatova, 3rd Dana Benus
K1 Men, 1st Fabien Lefevre, 2nd Ben Boukpeti, 3rd Jan Sarbidor

We now stay the night here in Liptovsky and head to Brataslava tomorrow for one week of training there.