Conor Macken 2013 Paddling

2013 was a pretty big year for myself in Irish paddling, It marked the year were I made the switch to the senior Irish Freestyle Team.

The year kicked off with Team trials at the national water-sports centre in Nottingham.
The venue was decided to make it as fair as possible.
At team trials it was a tough fight but I managed to come out Joint first with fellow IFT members Barry Loughnane and Tom Dunphy.

Space Godzilla Inlet wave, Nottingham

After team trials there was a lack of freestyle competitions due to the water and "unusable features" such as Sluice in Dublin, not my words ha but there was however a few training days used to boost Irish paddling and try and make some funds for the Team at the same time. I carried on padddling most weekends up at sluice or a few days down running some stuff in Wicklow to try best to keep my paddling levels up, I even managed to get a quick session in on Slane castle weir at flood levels which was a welcome change.

Everything from there then led to the world championships at the Nantahala Outdoor Centre in North Carolina U.S.A.
Thanks to some fundraising with Irish freestyle training days, Irish Freestyle calender sales, support from canoeing Ireland and the "deap" pockets of the team member we ended up having a full Junior mens and mens team.

2013 Team before the Opening ceremony in Bryson City, NC

My personal paddling didn't go too great with a finish I wasn't happy with it but we had some excellent results from two of our Juniors Billy Brett and David McClure taking 9th and 10th place respectively.

Training in My Custom PeakUK Speedskin cagdeck

Late night composite repairs

Overall the worlds was still a great trip and a new experience all the same. We were living practically wild for the few weeks we were there and yes I would do it all over again. 

Next seasons big trip Ill be off to Uganda to stay on the hair lemon and experience some of the worlds biggest whitewater in hopefully some new custom peak UK gear.

want to thanks my various sponsors from the year namely Watershed Dry bags, Surfplugs, Jones engineering group, The DIT Sports and recreation service and of course I-Canoe.

Here is a short video I put together of my year the way I see it best and Heres to an even better 2014 for paddling!