This year I was very happy to be selected along with three other juniors to represent Ireland on the Junior National team travelling to the ICF WWR World Championships held in July in Lofer, Austria.
I have been training and competing at Wild Water racing for two years, I am interested in most kayaking disciplines but I train and compete in WWR most of all. When I started out paddling with my older brothers at the age of eight, I’d no idea that this challenging, exciting, sometimes sketchy sport would become such an important part of my life.
All those Saturdays of getting up early, winter and summer, driving across to Strawberry beds (thanks, mam!) when staying in a warm bed would have been a lot nicer. But it all paid off over a weekend last feburary at national selections on the river Inny where I was selected for the irish team.
Getting to the championships was an adventure in itself going overland in a campervan with my parents and one of my brothers; we travelled through quite a few countries over a few days, although it has to be said I probably slept and ate my way through quite a few of them
When we arrived in Lofer ( a really nice alpine town), it was just recovering from the flooding that had occurred in June across Europe. Some of the bridges over the river had been washed away and there had been a few landslides. I wondered how it would be ready for the Championships but incredibly it was, paths were built, bridges appeared almost overnight and the flags went up and all was good. This is when the excitement really started - I couldn’t wait to get on the water.
I trained on the river as much as possible and it was a real challenge at times when the levels both rose and dropped before the competition days. It’s incredible to have the opportunity to train and race on a river like the Saalach with its levels changing so often, and I really hope to go back there again.
When the rest of the team arrived we trained with our coaches, reading the river and getting the lines right. Each day the water was different and this presented lots of challenges. We were so used to the Liffey and it’s usually flat and fairly predictable. This river offered a totally new experience.
The Opening, Closing and Medal ceremonies are pretty cool, with lots of formality, local bands parading through the town and all the teams walking behind, waving their own National flags and wearing their team gear. After the Opening on the 9th, the competition got going on July 10th with racing in the Individual Classic. I achieved 22nd in this and in the individual sprint race 29th place.
In the team events we gained a lot of experience and though they didn’t go as well for us as we’d hoped we realised that we have a lot of work to do to compete against the other athletes at World Championship level. We had some down time too and tried out our Golf skills on the crazy golf course, ate a whole lot of Pizza, carried out running repairs on the boats and made a lot of friends with Juniors from all over the world.
Back in Ireland, it was back to the old Liffey, flat and predictable . I took a two-week break, relaxed, didn’t do much, just let my body recover from the 3 week paddling adventure.
In my spare time when I’m not training or I have a day off I can usually be found down at the local trails in the Park where we have a pretty sweet setup and I’m either digging or riding the jumps with some friends and my brother Cian.
I listen to music too – I can’t narrow it down to just one type I like lots of stuff.
Now I’m back training again, working to a new programme. I am hopeful that I will qualify for selection again next year and get a chance to improve on this year’s results at the WWR Junior Europeans to be held in Bosnia-Herzegovina. For the moment I’m happy to be training, back to normal, making the trip across to WWKC every Monday Wednesday and Saturday.
Hopefully it rains soon……and I can get the dust off the raptor
Thanks for reading
Odhrán
