ICF Junior Wildwater World Championships, 7/21/2007

I worked in the hospital last night and napped Sat pm. Susan had to work so I told her I would go watch an hour or so for the ICF Junior Wildwater National Championships. In the past we enjoyed watching wildwater racing on the Ocoee & Nanthala Rivers back when Lori won her 2 ACA junior national championships is wildwater. We remember the boats breaking up at humongous on the Olympic course at the Ocoee R. It was fun to see the drama as national teams & families. The longer races had been held the first two days in Columbia, SC and yesterday was team sprints here. Today's races were the individual sprints and then they had the closing ceremonies. The French & Czechs were the class in both mens and womens. Only one girl raced C1 so there is room for competition. It was amazing how fast the C2's could accelerate!!! The announcer was on the bridge at the start of the M-Wave and from his vantage could see the carnage at Trashcan and all the way to the bottom. The fastest line was slightly to the right of the peak of the M-wave but ever so slightly farther to the right would send these speeding missles into the barrier on the right. Hitting the very top of the M-wave stopped the boats momentarily causing loss of motion. I got up and got my throw rope early on as all of the safety was set up on the inside of the course. I pulled several people out but those long boats full of water were way too heavy. The top time for a lap of the frontier side was about 104 seconds so they really were moving. It was so pleasant I stayed till the awards were being presented. /Hugh

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