2003 World
Freestyle Kayak Championships - Report 32, June 1
Competition Day 6- Finals
Men´s Kayak
1. Jay Kincaid
2. Andrew Holcomb
3. Steve Fisher
4. Eric Jackson
5. Billy Harris
The finals had some of the lowest scores and some good ones as well. In
the first round, the only score over 200 was Steve Fisher with Billy Harris
getting knocked out with a 90 pointer, Jay with a 113, Andrew with a 143,
EJ with a 168, and Steve with a 202. In the next round, I had a solid
start with my Space Godzilla entry move into vertical lefties, into a
super flush that used up my time coming in at 142. Jay and Andrew both
had 186´s and Steve had a great ride at 220. In the next round,
everybody paddled well, but Steve got knocked out. It came down to Andrew
and Jay. Jay survived each round by the skin of his teeth, but in his
last ride he showed the true "All Day Jay Kincaid" style by
laying down a ride that would be hard to beat. Andrew missed his opening
split wheel which set the tone for the rest of his ride, where he was
working hard, getting moves, but just a notch off. Andrew was within striking
distance of Jay´s score until he flushed on his blunt. He said after
that he was so tired that when he went for it he knew he didn´t
have enough left in him to stick it. In that moment, Jay Kincaid became
the 6th person in history to hold the title of World Freestyle Champion
for men´s kayak. Jay will make a great world champion with his dedication
to the sport, his love of paddling in general, and the fact that he has
only just begun! If you want to see the world champion in action and learn
from his skills, get my DVD´s. They star, Jay, Steve, EJ, and Clay
Wright (if Clay competed in these world´s, I am sure he would have
been in the top 5 as well)
In the women´s class it was
1. Brooke Winger, USA
2. Deb´s Pinnager, GBR
3. Jutta Kaiser, Germany
4. Fiona Jarvie, GBR
5. Polly Green, USA
Polly trained super hard all winter and came into the competition a new
paddler. Her skills were enough to get her on the team this past fall
but were not competitive then. When she arrived here, she was ready to
compete with the big guns. Unfortunately her first ride was not up to
par and she got knocked out first. Fiona paddled exceptionally well in
her 3rd world championships to take the 4th place spot. The top three
women left were all paddling Wave Sport Transformers (T1´s) I was
a proud pappa at this point!
Jutta Kaiser was on fire in the next round, but so was Deb´s and
Brooke and they out paddled her handing her the bronze medal.
Deb´s and Brooke duked it out in good old fashioned gloves off,
head to head style. They came in two points apart, Brooke in the lead
making her the new World Champion for women´s kayak!!
In the Junior Men´s Class
1. Rush Sturges, USA
2. Pat Keller, USA
3. Richard Grimes, GBR
4. Peter Csonka, Chech.
5. Michael Quinif, USA
This was a tale of upsets, blowouts and awesome rides. In a nutshell,
Rush put the pressure on and everybody else eventually couldn´t
deal. Michael was fully capable of winning, but had a blow out ride on
his first to get eliminated. Peter Csonka had a great ReEntry entry move
to start his next ride but flushed early and got in the hole and flushed
again, see ya. Richard Grimes was dominating early on but got flushed
twice to lose to solid rides by Pat and Rush. Rush and Pat gave it their
all in the last round. Pat looked loose enough and finally went for his
entry move and stuck it, it was game on! Rush answered right back with
an entry move and some sick vertical ends, head in the water hucking until
your blue style, and made the junior world championship mean something!
C1´s
This is a short story of some C1 heros in full battle. Bill McNight, quite
frankly, showed everybody that he was in fact the World Champion by winning
every round in the finals. Luke Hopkins and Barry Keenan battled hard
over second place but in the end, Luke overpowered Barry with his loop.
Barry, (nobody has skills like this guy, kayak or C1 on small features)
was the defending world champion and was there to win it again. He didn´t
but he already has his sights set on Sydney! Nicolas Sarazin (France)
and Goto Morihiro (Japan) took fourth and fifth, but were quite far behind
the big guns in scores. For a story on Bill McNight, go to my "stories"
section on my website. I wrote about him this spring.
Junior Women
1. Katerina Midgauova (Chech)
2. Ali Wade (USA)
3. Hanna Farrar (USA)
4. Lianne Wagtho (Netherlands)
5. Lena Schnoor (Germany)
The best junior women´s in the history of kayaking happened in this
finals. Ali Wade was on fire and nailed a back loop along with some sweet
cartwheels. However, Katerina was the girl to beat. She was smiling every
moment of the competition and when she got in the hole, she could throw
down like a senior. Hanna Farrar had a super solid ride but got over powered
by Ali and Katerina to take the bronze. All in all, a great comp.
