Last Saturday Cardiff played host to the first GB event of the year. It was nice to be competing in a hole again and with some new faces to paddle with. As the event started later in the day I was able to get a small lay-in for some extra energy to help me get through the long day.
After registration and briefing we all got onto the water to have an hours practice on the water. I started off in my Jed just so I could test all of the features for depth to keep my Guigui from harms way! After paddling a few of the features I was happy to go swap boats, and also quite surprised of the quality of the features while on 10 cumics.
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| Loop |
While getting some practice in on the competition wave I realised that the surfers left corners was a bit of a pain to set up from but easy to paddle up into the feature from. I was able to plug fairly deep and go fairly big, but was still a bit worried about the floor as you can clearly see the blocks through the water. Despite this going a bit smaller allowed me to start throwing some combos with some more ease compared to going massive and linking.
We had to get off the water for a pre-comp brief. The competition was begin run as a jam session which I always find more relaxing compared to 45 second rides. My only plans were to try and throw all of the main moves first to guarantee my points then start to throw some trophy moves and fun moves. I was in the 3rd heat with Charlie, Heidi and Hugo.
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| Left Space |
Started my ride with an entry move 3 which set me up for a loop which I then linked to a split to split combo! I was super fired up to have gotten this straight from dropping into my first ride. Next I focused on my mcnastys, which I got my left one huge but unfortunately missed out on the right one. For the next few rides my focus was the right mcnasty and both my spaces, which eventually I got! I then did my left lunar as well as a tricky woo, which I don't think would have scored because of the last end. I then went onto the fun moves with a woo tricky and a butterfly attempt! I also tried a jedi flip but landed way out of the feature.
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| Going for the Jedi Flip |
For the last 5 minutes of the heat we were having a big loop competition to see who could loop the biggest. I found this hard because for me too loop big I have to plug deep which I didn't want to do, but I tried the best I could to go big without breaking my boat!
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| Big loop competition |
After the heat Jake, Charlie and I went up to the corner hole to have some fun and paddle. We were all trying different moves. Jake was getting his mcnastys to go huge witch was interesting to see how long he waits to throw the loop. Charlie and I were both messing about with different moves, I was working on my right lunar as I have no clue what I'm doing once I've pushed the tail under! With a sticky feature and a powerful shoulder I was able to spin quickly and look ahead of my rotation which is better than I've been able to do so far! We then went and got changed ready for prize giving.
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| Right Space |
At prize giving all of the results were announced. In Junior expert Jake came 1st, Charlie came 2nd , I came 3rd, Hugo came 4th and Harry came 5th! Also I got a chocolate muffin!!! It was a fantastic day and also a great day out paddling!
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