Aaron Osborne

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 poles from the windy day. However I felt like my boat had some pretty good run/glide on the boat and I was able to control my boat a bit more than the week of training. This is pretty positive for me as I had been struggling throughout training since I had arrived. I was also pretty happy to blow out the cobwebs as this was my first race in 5 months!

Vavrinec H from the Czech Republic showed why he was the man to beat on his home course with his first run 4 seconds clear of the rest of the field!!! This left the to 40 crammed in and paddlers needed to risk tight lines and push the limits to qualify.  The rest of the NZ crew also raced today with everyone missing the semi final cut. C1 Mens – Brent B 48, Ben G 50, Shaun H 51st. K1L – Luuka 35, Louise 44, Nikki 53. K1M – Mike 45th Aaron 55th, Johann 71st.

For me now the focus turns to training and ironing out a few things that I learnt from this race. We head to Bratislava for a training camp which starts on Monday. Then a couple of hard weeks leading into the World Championships later in September.

Ill post my videos some time this week.

Full Results and video can be found by Clicking Here