Barry's Blog: Worlds Wrap Up

The 2013 World Championships have finally come to close with the sleepy mountain resort of NOC returning to the norm. For the past two months paddlers from all over the world have been making the treck to the Nantahala Gorge with it all coming to a climax on Sunday as finals were played out. No Irish paddlers made the finals this year but we had some promising results with Billy Brett and David McClure making it through to the semi finals in Junior Men finishing 9th and 10th respectively giving us something to cheer for.

With the big jump in standard this year competition was fiercer then ever with the cut to make it out of prelims in 20th place being 1500. To give you some perspective Stephen Wright posted a score of 1400 to sit in first place after prelims at the 2011 worlds in Plattling. The jump in standard was great to see and made the event great for spectators. Some massive rides were thrown down with the height of it coming in the quarter finals with Mathieu Dumoulin laying down an unbelievable ride of 1520 with nearly every move being linked with end over end cartwheels and splits while going huge on all his loop moves. However Mathieu was not at the top of the board long as Dane Jackson then topped it with a 1560 getting huge and clean bonus's on all his loop moves. Dane went on to put in another 1500+ second ride to set a new record for a two ride combined score of over 3100 points. With all the big scores some surprises were on the cards with 2011 world champion James Bebbington making an early exit in 11th place.

Semi finals took place Saturday night under the flood lights which lit up the Nantahala river as if it was daylight. With a packed crowd squeezed in trying to get a good view of the action the atmosphere made for an electric semi final round. Prior to the light set up bring seen there was some concern and a push by some to have the semi finals moved back during daylight. At the last worlds quarter finals were held under lights but due to the size of the river lights on all sides of the river were not possible making it difficult to seem where you were in the feature at all times. The team at NOC put together a light set up that took away this fear with lights enclosing the river on all sides to light it up as bright as day. Hopefully we will see more events under the light as it really does create a special atmosphere.

Scores under the lights did not reach the height of the quarter finals but were no less impressive with Dane Jackson taking top spot once again with a ride of 1200 +. Mathieu Dumoulin was the surprise casualty of the semi finals going out in 6th place to Britain's Alan Ward who took the last place in Sundays final.

Sunday saw finals kick off early with Men's and Women's squirt first where Clay Wright and Claire O Hara took the honors. Next up was OC1 with Jordan Poffenberger taking top spot throwing some impressive mcnasty's along the way. Juniors were up next with local paddler Rowan Stuart taking top spot in Junior Women. Junior Men's final showed just how good the next generation of seniors are with it taking a ride of over 1000 points to just get on the podium. Americas Hunter Katich taking top spot with a ride take would have seen him place well in the seniors final. In C1 Jordan Poffenberger knocked Dane Jackson off top spot to claim his second word title of the day with an spectacular ride of over 1000 points

Women's finals saw the action heating up with Japanese paddler Hitomi Takaku taking top sport with her first ride of 650 points. She held the lead until the last ride of the final when Clare O Hara pulled it out of the bag with a ride of just over 700 points. Mens finals saw some big score once again with the top three all hitting 1200 + rides. Dane Jackson took top spot to complete the Worlds having lead at every round of the competition. Peter Csonka was narrowly beat in the second place by only seven points. Tomasz Czaplicki rounded off the podium in his carbon Dagger Jitsu capping a great competition for him.