Aaron Osborne

Another week has gone by here in Bratislava. The temperatures were pushing past 35 degrees for the whole week which made life pretty tough as we had no air conditioning. Following the ICF training camp I had a couple of easy days and was stoked to feel the benefit. I feel like I have made some good progressions over the past few weeks and Im feeling a lot more consistent on many parts of this course! I also had a trip to Vajda Canoes and Kayaks who were awesome and fixed up a crack that I put in my boat…  [ Read More ]

For the past week the NZ Canoe Slalom Team has been training attending the ICF training camp in Bratislava. It pretty much means we have had a large block of white water training on the World Championship course. I did a stack of training throughout the week and now Im pretty wrecked and looking forward to a few easy days. Its been great to utilise some video feedback and learn a bit more about how to paddle this challenging course, particularly the bottom drop that nicknamed ‘Niagara‘. I also picked up and assembled my new set of G Power, Crank  [ Read More ]

Well todays racing didn’t quite go to plan. But some really positive stuff to build on going into the next 4 weeks leading into the World Championships. I finished 55th in Mens K1, my worst result in many years. However its not all bad, I attacked both my runs pretty well but in both first and second runs I had a few issues with the last two upstreams and ended up dropping very very low in my first run and also pretty low in my second run. I also had a touch on both runs but both were from swinging  [ Read More ]

On Monday following our nation training we headed into Prague for a bit of sight seeing. We caught the metro from our accommodation and found ourself in the old town of Prague. We had a nice walk to Charles Bridge, around the Old Town and up to the Museum.  We also checked out the Medieval Torture Museum which was gnarly as it showed all the old ways of torturing people… But all and all a pretty nice day cruising the sights… Things are also heating up here with more and more nations turning up to prepare for the Prague World Cup. The course is also transforming into a race site with  [ Read More ]

This weekend I will be racing the Canoe Slalom World Cup #4 and the last race for the World Cup series in 2011.  The World Cup is being held in Prague, Czech Republic. Its my first and only race leading into the World Championships which is the Olympic Qualification event.  I really enjoy paddling here as the river has heaps of little waves, holes and some good eddys. The course also is really easy to paddle back to the top and just good fun! My throat is still pretty sore but very slowly is getting better (I think) and every day  [ Read More ]

So I have nearly been in Europe for a week now and slowly getting into the swing of things. My boat is getting better every session as I add something each day to make it more comfortable as these things take time…  My paddling is also getting better every session as I learn how to paddle the new design and learning the course. Tomorrow we depart Bratislava (Slovakia) and head north to Prague (Czech Republic) for the week to prepare for the Canoe Slalom World Cup #4. I also have meet up with Ben Gibb and Shaun Higgins who I  [ Read More ]