Summer racing and training

We've been having a few races lately, the Bill Ross Memorial Race and one at the Kaituna River. For me I didn't race to my ability but nothing too bad. Just silly mistakes through out. Hopefully get them sorted by selections! Around that it's just been training, starting to get a bit of speed into into it as I get ready for selections. This year they're in the same places as usual, Kawerau and Shannon. The race in shannon is also the NZ Open and Oceania Championships, an ICF world ranking race so there's going to be a bit of international competition coming over I hear. After selections i'll be off to Penrith to the Australia Open for 10 days training before hand, with my brother and the whiteheads. The Australian Open is always a popular turn out so will be heaps of competition, juniors and seniors.

Kaituna working bee

Today Andy Fuller organised a working bee at the Kaituna River, was good to see all the junior paddlers and some parents there helping. The weather was great for the job. Changes were fixing about 15 to 20 gates up and adding a few which is good because the more gates the better! Rob Sperling made an awesome set of stairs. Some Judging and coaching stations were made, starting to look alot better. After I cut a wire in halve with a gate on it right above the shoot, Regan August jumped in to save it, crazy. Guess I owe him! Heres a few pictures of the course.

2010

Kaituna photos

FROG paddling gear

I've recieved some sponsorship from my brother Ben Gibb who is now the distributor for FROG paddling gear in New Zealand, they design and produce slalom gear including top decks, pants, short, boat bags, paddle bags and paddle jackets. They are priced really well and good quality gear so if your interested contact Ben on 0273331166 or bengibb43@gmail.com for further information and a catalogue of all FROG products.

Mangahou training camp

Last week the New Zealand development team had a training camp down at the Mangahou white water centre just past Shannon. Carl and Nikki Whitehead, Laurence Brown, Malcolm Gibson and I travelled to foxton beach where we were staying in a bach. The weather at the camp was as expected, cold, rainy, but thats mangahou for you. Trainings for me were pretty productive I found, training with the group I was staying with aswell as a couple of sessions with my brother Ben Gibb and Aaron Osborne. But mainly with alot of help from Ian Mercer in his spare time away from the Development Team. The course at Mangahou will host the 3rd and 4th selection races for the nz teams (senior and junior) if the same as last year there will be a few athletes from overseas coming to compete before heading off to Australia for the world series race. There was a quick race at the end of the 4day training camp

1st Me, 99 2nd Carl 103 3rd Malcolm 106

In the development team Cole Oconnor Stratton was placed 1st with a 108 showing good form over winter training Pictures by Ian Mercer and Kaydi Oconnor Stratton.

Back into training/Europe summary

After a trip to europe for just over a month and a month off paddling I'm back into my training,with aerobics, running, all the fun stuff! My trip to europe was a great experience. Travelling to spain and france, with stop overs in singapore airport, we were mainly based in Foix for the 2010 Junior World Championships.Foix is a small town in the Midi-Pyrenees. We first arrived to foix after a few days touring around paris looking at all the tourist attractions. Foix was cold and miserable at first, not what I had expected! The river was changing regularly which was a pain because features were changed with it. After a solid block of training I was off to Seu to race at the 2010 Senior World Cup. It was difficult training without coach Kidda and by myself, but got it done! The race came and I felt prepared. First runs was going great with good feeling, then I got to the up under the bridge, droping low loosing around just under 10 seconds. Second runs I focused on doing a solid run, however I went down the course making small mistakes everywhere finishing down the field. After Seu I headed to Sort with the junior team and had a recovery few days doing river runs and technical sessions with french paddler Jonathon Marc who coached us. Once recovered it was back to Foix for the race. It didn't go quite as I planned, qualifying down in 27th after having a safe run. In semis I had mistakes down the course and picking up a touch, finishing 23rd place, 3 places ahead of where i finished 2 years ago.... But there's alot to learn from this experience and I'm more motivated for junior world next year!

pictures coming soon

Australia Dev. Trip

Finally back home, landed in on sunday night after 3 weeks of touring around australia over the new year, claiming some national titles! The trip started with training in eildon about 2 hours out of melbourne in the middle of no where.. we trained for about 5days or so untill the australian secondary schools competition, by the time the race came the water levels have dropped to a third of what they were when we were training! so the course changed to a completeley flat course which is a bit disapointing going all that way, to race on flat. but the nz team managed to deal with it fine with heaps of medals and wins! I had a pretty consistent race to post two 94s clean, taking out the under 16 oz title. There was some other good results as well with Ben Gibb an Bradyn Church winning the under 18 years title by quite alot, and cole oconner stratton one of the youngsters coming second in the NZ team, which at 15 is pretty good! finishing 2nd in the under15s. Next race was the southern cup race which had been changed to each run being one race so, not best of two runs anymore.. race one, i was having a great run nailing most of the moves on the course, posting an 89 ahead of second in 93 or something, getting out of my boat at the finish stoked with my run, coach ian told me i paddled straight past a gate on the flat, probably the easiest gate on the course! i couldn't even remember doing it, just a blank mind, which was really frustrating getting given a 50 second penalty, pushing me way down the results list.. second race/run, the water had increased to level it was during training, so was a proper course, i was trying to push really hard down the course, which worked untill the first upstream gate 3... where i touched then just got worse touching down the course and picking up another 50, which pushed me out of the southern cup winnings or placings alot..but it was a bit of a learning curve. We then had a rest day between the australian nationals which were to be held in two days, so i pulled out of downriver, but ended up having to run DR boats up to the top of the course! the course for nationals was a bit zig zag, with about 5 huge crosses across the river. first run i was a bit offline down the course but was an alright run with one touch 1st after first runs. 2nd runs i wanted to just stay on line and have a solid run. which i managed to do. going a second faster and clean taking out the australian national title for under 18men! also i got medals in other catagories such as teams and c1 getting 2 gold and 5 silver on the trip, results for k1 can be found at http://www.canoe.org.au/default.asp?Page=18380
Most of the team headed to penrith after the 2 weeks in eildon for a weeks training on the olympic course from the sydney 2000 olympics. Being a pretty physical course, a few of the younger guys had problems with their shoulders, subluxing them and so. but i managed to not get injured! in training i was feeling pretty warn out but felt like i improved alot technically, over the weeks training. I owe a big thanks to Roy Bailey for managing the dev. trip, Ian Mercer for coaching also andrew n aaron. and Pip Arnold for assistant manager. also sue clarke for organising the trip to penrith and the croft family for letting me and malcolm stay with them for the week in penrith! now im home for selections at kawerau and mangahou! this weekend, the 23rd and 24th the race is at kawerau and then it's off to mangahou the weekend after for the ICF World Ranking Race, and the 3rd and 4th selection races. Will add more photos later.