GB Squirt Selections

    On Saturday it was time for the GB team to be selected through an event at Beeston Weir up in Nottingham. This mean getting up at 5 o'clock to leave home for 6 o'clock. Luckily Mum and Dad were coming to watch me compete so Dad drove us up in the van which meant I could catch up on my sleep!

    Having never been to Beeston and only seeing the seam line a few times in various different videos, I didn't know what to expect. We first met at HPP, which was unfortunately closed for cleaning. We followed Ben from HPP to Beeston. After speaking about what might be happing out at worlds depending on making the team I motivated myself for the freezing cold selections.

    It was about a 10 minute walk down to the water which seemed longer with a boat and kit weighing me down. When we got there, it looked like there was a really good powerful seam line to go down in. After our briefing I went for a quick warm up like I would always do when training with Burners, so I was trying to keep my routine as normal as possible to be in the same mental state.



    We were allowed a 10 minute warm up time to practice getting some downtime or flat water moves. I tried a few mystery moves and cartwheels then made for the bank as it was freezing cold. We started our heats as quickly as possible. For my first run I did as I always do, flat water moves followed by my mystery move. I started with a party roll and hit the floor straight away, but tried to push through which was hard. Everything I was trying I kept hitting the floor, which wasn't a good start for me. I then rushed over to the seam line to try and mystery move but the ends of my boat kept popping out of the water.


    My second ride I thought it would be best to mystery first and then do my ride in the wave train to accumulate feature bonus on all of the moves. After managing to hold my boat down for about 10 seconds, at my armpit level I threw my exit moves and started off with cartwheels and spilt wheels, flowed by a tricky woo with a switch at the end; which I've been practicing. Then I was doing fairly easy moves like one armed bandits to rack up a few safe points. My third ride I flowed the same procedure. Mystery move, then routine. This time I was moving down stream a lot quicker than last time and ended up going past the beach to get out, which meant trying to pull myself up a tree to get to a safe place to get out my boat. 


    After getting changed I walked my boat back up to the van thinking that I hadn't done nearly enough to make team for Canada. In the car park Mum made me some hot chocolate to warm me up as it was so cold. No one yet knew the results apart from the judges. On the way home, a message was sent to the group chat on Facebook of all the paddlers taking part for the results. Ben White came 1st with an impressive 1040, I came 2nd!!! Managed to score 620 which is the highest score I've ever scored in squirt! Ben Aldred came 3rd with 420, Richie 4th with 250, Hugh 5th with 230 and Dan 6th with 120. 

    An overall shock that I managed to make team for the World Championships in August! It was a fantastic selection event and I think I actually enjoyed paddling my squirt boat in the cold for once! 

Look like I'll be booking some flights to Canada soon!! 

Ben Aldred going for his Mystery




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