GCU | COACH NEWS

Day 2 racing has come and gone for me here in Szeged. It has been close....!

We raced 500m heats and semis yesterday afternoon after some solid results by the team in the morning 1000m races. Bridgitte made it straight to the 1000m A final where we hope she can win us another medal. And Stubbs was impressive again just missing out on the A finals. Len had a great comeback to join Stubbs in the B final and the K4 guys were very impressive to race brilliantly being in the race to makan A final but in the end narrowly missing it. However on their 1st sprint tour they can be very proud of their achievments. This boat can go a long way. They can work so much harder and will improve a lot in a year.

I raced the 500K2 with Tiffany and we raced very well. We had a heat from hell and our 7th place no where near reflected our strength. Estie and Rochelle missed out on making it through to a semi but raced bravely. Our time was good enough to put us 3rd in another heat. But it was a good learning race and we bettered our effort with a brilliant semi. We were 4th mising the A final by 0.8 of a second. Not bad for being in the boat a total of 6 times before this regatta, and that incudes the races we did at SA champs. So im excited for the boat as long as we can comto an agreement over how we are going to train. It was always my idea to race K1 to be independant and the only reason I decided to try the K2 was because it felt so good at SA's. So we'l see what happens. Other good results were B finals for cam and Stu, Stubbs and A finals for Bridg and Shaun and Mike.

Today was a whole different race and a lot of very close misses. We began with a good round of heats, I was 2nd, the cradocks 1st, shaun and Mike 1st and Greg in his K1 3rd. But heats dont count and we all had tough races where we had to make the top 2 to get to A finals. I had an ok race but I just wasnt solid enough in the middle and missed the A final to come 3rd only 0.2 behind. Enough of a gap in the 200s though. The cradocks got beaten by Steve Bird and his partner also by 0.2 and then came a hue disappointment for mike and Shaun. They were 4th... but 1st place won in 33.27, 2nd place was 0.04 behind, 3rd was 0.07 behind 1st and Shaun and Mike were 0.9 behind 1st! So all 3 were very clos, too close though and shaun and mike just weent on the right side of the luck. So lots more B finals were made! Greg, Stu and Bridg made C finals in the K1. Greg and Stu will be racing to see who can race the K1 at Worlds. I hope the selectors will now allow me to race the 200 at worlds. My times have been consistently faster than Bridgittes, even though her easier semi saw her race the A fianl at Vichy. Time will tell!

The time is flying as it always does once racing begin. The suns out again the afternoon after a huge downpour this morning that delayed racing for half an hour due to lightening. Hopefully it stays warm and sunny for tommorrow. The conditions have been perfect, with the dreaded side wind staying away. Most racing has been on mirror like water. Just brilliant. Hard to believe the racing will all be over tommorrow and we'l be heading back home the next day. Its been a great tour with a lot of positives. Its been especially great to have Jacques here with me, it makes all the difference and hes been number 1 video guy recording all our races. A hugely beneficial thing to have and something we'v never had in the past. Also great fo rhim to learn all there is from guys like Marcus and other athletes so that he can help me with my training even more.

Time to get home to training now. Im so motivated for some hard work. Some skaap tjops and green unfried broccoli will go down a treat as well!

Jen

Link to racing web site http://results.mkksz.hu/en/timetable/

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Almost racing time!!!

We are now into our final preparations for the 2nd world cup here in Szeged, Hungary. It has been a great 2 weeks of training and this last week in the hotel in the city has been fantastic. We are very close to the city centres walking street where there is lots of great shops and resturants. Last week was the annual Szeged wine festival and it was great to see Hungarian culture at its best. The wines apparently didnt taste too good to the guys' spoilt South African palettes! But the hungarians werent to know and it was very festive. on the weekend they put up a lot of stalls across the main bridge which spans the river Tisza (a huge river as big as the Danube) and all sorts of Hungarian flea market type things were being sold. After watching Robin Hood at the movies the guys were super keen to buy a real bow with arrows but we werent sure how we would get it back home and we were sure we wouldnt going to get it on board as hand luggage! The bows came complete with animal skin hats and jackets and next door stalls were selling very strange looking sweets. Best up was the cinnamon dough thing shaped like large cups cooked over a wood fire. and as for the candifloss we are only serving half portions at home!

Iv been a bit sick with flu, but luckly not too bad. It start Saturday so iv had some time to get over it. Im getting stronger each day and only race my first heat at 16h30 on friday so i still have 2 more days. i think iv got lucky but i think ill only be operating at 95 %. we'll see, theres no telling what your mind can do!

Im excited for the 500m K2 that im paddling with tiffany. We combine naturally and havnt had to work on it to get the boat feeling great. We will see how the weekend goes and the idea is maybe to look to next years worlds to try to qualify the boat. I feel we in with a good chance and its ridiculous to have either Bridgitte or I sitting out of the 500 altogether watching the other one race. So my goals are now the 200 K1 and the 500 K2. Im keen to get back home to put in some solid months of training. Hopefully the slectors will send me to worlds as every race is invaluable to gaining experience.

The team is all guns ahead looking forward to the weekends racing. Everyone is in very good spirits. We have a fantastic thing going here with the enormous help from CSA, mainly Graham, Greg van Heerden our High Performance guy, Julia our physio and manager if Greg isnt here, and Alex our sports scientist. The big squad is exciting, it can only serve to grow the sport and if it continues as it is then we have a very exciting Olympic future to look forward to. I think the best thing is that you all back home believe in us after we showed we can perform on the greatest stage as South African athletes.

For now its time to concentrate on the weekend and some fast racing. The official web site is www.kajakkenusport.hu/worldcup2008/
and dont forget to follow the SA blog site on http://sakayak.blogspot.com/

Jen

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Hello!

So today is our last day living here on the course. Tomorrow we move to the hotel in town. Its great for entertainment purposes to be within a walk to the centre of town but it will make training a bit more logistically difficult. We will have to coordinate training between the different groups to get transport here and back again. It was great when Alex was here with the big bus as then we could all jump in and go for a trip into town or the movies. Now its not so easy.

So the best thing is that Jacques is here with me. I went through to Budapest on the train Wednesday morning to fetch him. It was the most halarious train trip. I went 2nd class as it was a significant savings to my eyes, well the funny part was the carriges were really old. Because it was so cold here they had the heaters in the carriges on full blast. But the old school carriges had the heaters under the seats and they just got hotter and hotter. Whew i tried sitting in other places and it was just as bad everywhere. Eventually my bum was boiling! and i stood up for the last half hour!!! A poor old man in his suit was sitting across from me and the sweat was just pouring off him! It was so halarious, but even funnier cause i could only laugh to myself. Sometimes you have to be happy for the past and I was glad to have spent so many months in Budapest as I knew all the short cuts to the airport. I soon made it to the airport and at last Jacques was here with me :-) Almost unbelievable to believe at first! It was so cold out that we just made our way straight back to Szeged and thanks to Julia giving me a lift to and from the station in Szeged we made it back for lunch. Luckerly on the way back the seats werent sooo hot!

The other new news is that I am going to paddle K2 with tiffany for the 500m this regatta. My logic goes like this. I raced Vichy in my K1 so i have a very good idea of where im at. Most of the girls who were beating me there I used to beat and so it was a bit demoralising, but only to the point where I feel very stoked to go back home and put in some hard graft to get super fit and strong again. I have my benchmark. Then there can only be 1 boat per country per race at world champs. So bridgitte will be racing world champs 500m k1. Therefore tiffany and i might as well race K2. Due to the results in Vichy, I need to beat Bridgitte this next weekend at the 200K1 or i dont go to worlds at all. So it makes sense to race the K2. Then Tiffany gets the chance to learn from me and I can help her break into international racing. She can be very good in the future. I know racing here will already help her. Then finally the same rules apply to the qualifying regatta next year where only 1 boat per country can race. So that means either Bridgitte or I will be sitting out while the other races the boat. In the mean time there is a chance we could qualify another 2 athlete positions for the games through the K2. The continental spots work similarly to how the K4 qualified. But this time Iv heard there are 4 southern hemisphere countries, we know its SA, Aus, NZ and we think Brazil but we not sure. For these countries there are 3 places provided you make top 10 or 11 Im not sure of that either. So we in with a chance.

Ok so 1 race at a time. Id like to make a B final here in Szeged or else I will rethink the boat. But we jumped in yesterday and we do combine well.

Otherwise boredom rules the SA camp. I am very happy to be studying through UNISA so I had my assignments to keep me busy. The guys have been going a bit mad, especially while it was so freezing you couldnt go outside much! The tour is a week too long, but it was Vichy being so early that has made the tour so long. I think this is probably the longest Ill have to be away until the olympic year.

So its just great to have Jacques here. I'm sure it puts his mind at rest a bit as well as to how boring these tours really are and that he's happy to be keeping his mind so active in his work back home. He really would go mad sitting here for weeks. Although I know he would have been at the top of the game if he did sprint.

So tomorrow is stage 3 of 3 in terms of the tour and its getting close to race day, I cant wait! Its also going to be great to watch the guys in action. Im excited for Stubbs, Rubs and Mike and the Louw brothers. I also cant wait to see Len paddling the 5000, its his game.

Jen

Hello for the last time from France 10 May 2010
Yesterday was 200 day and it lived up to its new Olympic reputation of fast close racing. Every race was a mad dash with all boats noses in one long line and the victors having to wait for confirmation of their win. Its a totally new game for us. In the past to win a 500m or 1000m by 0.5 of a second was an exceptionally close race. In the world of 200 racing its a huge gap. We have to learn to adjust our thinking so that 0.1 is a good margin and the first 6 or 7 boats can easily fall within half a second. SO is it a lottery? No i don't believe it is. The same names com eup over and over to claim the medals. I just think once we readust our mindset and realise the nose of the boat is all that matters we will get used to the tight stakes.
I had a bit of a disappointing day. I know I cant expect results at this point of the journey when Im still building power and strength but I didn't make it through to the A final. I ended up 4th in the B final. I had a mare semi to come 6th while my time was faster than Brigittes time which took her into the A final. Thats the nature of the game. Some days the luck falls your way. But if you are racing on luck you will always be in trouble. I hope to train over the next 15 months so that luck is not an issue. So that I can line up with the knowledge that Im good enough to get my nose on the correct side of the line of noses.
Theres a lot for me to work on, everything that I tell to you all while coaching you I need to put into practise. Using my core rotation instead of my shoulders ad getting the power on the blade. It'll all have to fall into place before I can race up there with the top 5 n the world.
We had some other great results, the most outstanding being Shaun and Mike in the K2 200m where they were 4th by a few millimetres making the Danish boat very happy to claim 3rd. They really are our best chance of a medal and everytime they race we can expect great things. Brigitte raced well to get a 7th in the 200. Greg and Ryan were 4th in the B final of the mens K2 200m after a nasty semi draw. There first regatta together and they went brilliantly. Stubbs also had a fantastic regatta finishing 2nd in the B final of the K1 500m. Hes knocking on the door to the A finals in his first K1 racing year. He is going to be exceptional.
So before we knew it another world cup was over and we were packing our bags for the trip to Hungary. Im sitting in Charles de Gaulle at the moment waiting for our flight to Budapest ad from there we drive 2 and a half hours down to Szeged which is on the border in the south. I look forward to the change in scene. Id compare Szeged to Stellenbosh with a big river running through it! Its very different to the rest of Hungary, or what Iv seen of it. Very modern and not communist looking at all. We are staying at the course in the Hungarian Olympic Kayak Centre for the next 2 weeks. We move out on the weekend before the racing starts into our hotel. Best of all for me is that Jacques is coming to Szeged on the 19th to support and coach me up to racing. Im hoping he can learn a lot from Marcus who has become a 200m expert over the last year.
Vichy is such a great town and I hope they can guarantee the water for next years worlds. Id really like to race there again. We went out to a pub to meet up the other countries for a beer and to play some pool last night and lucky for the guys heads the bar closed early so it was a very quiet party by canoeing standards but im sure we will change that if we qualify there in August next year!
So for now its a hard 2 weeks of conditioning and then I cant wait to race once more to see if I can improve. Theres no chance of getting faster in 2 weeks physically but mentally theres a lot to be done and get right. I hopefor the best.
Jen

News from Jen in Vichy. 8 May 2010
Its Saturday afternoon and so far so good for my return to the worlds sprint courses. I started yesterday morning with my heat. There was lots of drama at the start as Bridgitte almost missed the start. I was looking all round for her and she was no where to be seen. She got very lucky when the Swede false started and Bridge was given a second chance! Whew lucky girl! Shes had such terrific results it would have been disastrous. Shes been the star of the team once more winning us a medal in the 1000m K1 coming 2nd and coming 5th in the 500m K1. She is so exceptionally strong and Im sure theres many more victories to come her way.

Well my results don't look very impressive on paper but im very happy with the racing so far. The heat was bad....! It felt like i needed some Q20 in the joints to get going again! I must say to race here amongst the rest of the world is something different. The intensity is something you can never replicate in training or in a national competition. I hadn't forgotten but i had to get the news through to the rest of my body! What didn't help was the course conditions. Unfortunately for Vichy the course is on a river and there has been a huge amount of rain in the last week so the river is raging! Ok not SA style but Wednesday they opened all the sluice gates on the weir to allow as much water to drain out of the above section as possible. But it wasn't nearly enough and so the river is spilling over the weir at quite a rate. The result of this is that world records have been smashed by people racing into 2nd and 3rd places in heats! Obviously they wont be counted! It makes the water very unstable however and the more powerful people are benefiting from the fact that the strong current against the blade makes it difficult to get the blade through the water. All in all its a nightmare course and there is a petition going around to change next years World Champs and Olympic Qualifiers from Vichy to another course. Interesting to see if it happens.
Back to my racing I felt a hundred times better in my semi, I was 5th so missed out on an A final berth but it was close enough racing to make me feel confident that i can climb out from the bottom of the pile and get back up to the top. The rust was falling away and i was on a high to be racing and pushing my body to the absolute max once more. Iv missed it!
This morning was the finals and my B final was an early start, 8:30, but i had a good race finishing 0.4 behind the winner to come 3rd. This places me at 12th and from here i can have a good starting point. It was good to know that many of the girls I raced I beat easily in the past so now with a bit of work Ill be up there. It was also good to see the German Katrin Wagner-Augustine winning the A final as she was my competition before and therefore it is still the same girls who I will need to race against.
The weather has improved a lot with the sun shining for the first time today! Only 2 nights and then we are off to Hungary where they say its nice and warm. I think the only good thing was the 4 degree weather on Tuesday and Wednesday has made racing days feel warm!
The team is just an excellent bunch of people, Bridg, Julia the physio and I are seriously outnumbered by the boys! But they are all such great guys that theres always just lots of laughs and high spirits. Nic Stubbs has shown his talent by narrowly missing out on an A final only to be disqualified for not staying in the centre of his lane! A hard lesson. He races 500m this afternoon so he has another chance. Stu and Cam are so young but learning fast. They raced a brave semi but it wasn't enough and they were out. They need patience, this is a game of many years! The lighties in the K4 had the same lesson given out to them. In sprints theres no where to hide but they did well finishing their semi on the back of the race. They are also so young with so much time to learn. Len drew a nasty heat and was 7th to fall away. Whew all I can say is vas byt! I was also out in the heats my first race. Its so tough out there.
Thats the news for now, I will give final racing updates tomorrow evening. The time flies by during the regatta, I cant believe its all over tomorrow already!
Jen

Jens news from a very wet cold Vichy. 5 May, 2010
First of all I need to apologise for being away and not being able to attend to any clubs this month. But once again Im here in Europe on what is already becoming a brilliant sprint tour. After taking last year off and having nothing to do with sprints, I am stoked to be here and looking forward to racing on the weekend. We are in France until Monday, racing Friday to Sunday. We then fly across to Hungary and are based in Szeged, the nicest town there is in Hungary. After 2 weeks of training and staying in the Hungarian Olympic Kayak Centre we move out to a hotel and race the 2nd World Cup there in Szeged. We fly home on the 31st of May.
We flew out Sunday evening from Oliver Tambo and got to fly in the new massive aeroplane that now takes more than 100 people more than the old planes. It was very impressive from the outside, it really is massive. I sat upstairs while some of the team were downstairs, we could find each other by climbing the stairs between the 2 levels. Apparently there was free ice-cream at a bar somewhere but I managed to sleep the entire flight so I wasn't wondering around too much!
We landed in a freezing France and nothing has changed in the last 3 days. Well yesterday was 8 degrees but today is apparently 4 so its just got colder. However today is far better than yesterday as the wind is now just a normal headwind making normal sized waves. Yesterday was like the sea. The worst conditions for someone small like me in my tiny boat. I must say its an awesome feeling to paddle out there in the cold and rain, you definitely remember you alive!
The course is on a river so if the wind disappears we should be in for some good times as at the end of the course the river drops over a huge weir and disappears downstream, the water is flowing over quite strongly. The town is absolutely beautiful with huge parks especially surrounding our hotel. Its very old and we drive past a house where Napoleon (not dynamite) once lived. There are also lots of "thermal" waters which the non paddling team members went to try out. They say one was fizzy coming out of the ground! The parks are beautiful and even though its so cold its great to go for a walk or run through them. The trees look ancient and the flowers are increadible.
The food at the hotel has been a challenge, lunch is paddler food at the course but here in the hotel they have been testing our taste buds! Weird meat moose and unknown fish or cheese slooby stuff that slips down your throat.... we'v been eating really big lunches!!! Other than that we are stoked with our Hotel, Palace Aletti. Its very old so the rooms are massive but still modern inside. Definitely a big shout out to CSA- Greg, Tweet and the team for the excellent organisation of this tour. Its by far the most organised and upgraded trip Iv ever been on. We feel very professional and looked after.
Im looking forward to racing Friday. I don't feel very fit after my few months of training but Im up for the challenge and itl be a good starting point to get back into it. I hope for a tail wind. We are told Friday will be 10 degrees warmer... so thats 14... well its all good! I hope the team does well and especially the lighties who I can see are so dedicated to their goals. Its such a great team of people and we all getting on really well, lots of laughs already! I feel privileged to belong to Team SA. I ope we can achieve our goals of bringing home a medal in 2012.
Keep sending us your thoughts and good wishes and I will give you more updates once racing starts.
Jen