Lowri Davies

With the events of the previous week never far from my mind, I drove over some absolutely spectacular mountain passes in convoy with fellow Brit Jenny Chrimes. We made it to Ivrea in the wee hours and found ourselves driving around Ivrea city centre searching for a slalom course, with the river as our only navigational tool. Beating the one-way system we not only found the slalom course but also Rich Brooks, Craig Ayres and Will Hatt sleeping under an open marquee in the park next to the course, along with a bunch of other guys we presumed to be kayakers (though they could have just as easily been hobos!). We snuggled up alongside and were sent to sleep with the loud rumble of the meaty looking slalom course.

In the light of morning it was clear that no slalom course in the UK can compare – this was pushy and big volume with a good 5m of drop over the 150m course. There were several surgy holes and all of the eddies were recirculating worse the infamous river right eddy on HPP’s looping pool! But the slalom course was not the big gun of this event… the long race was to be held on 3km of the grade 4+ to 5 Chuisella; so we took the windy road up the mountain to check it out.

We spent a few days paddling in Valchuisella and trying to remember all of the lines. The low water-levels meant there were a number of piton-rocks to avoid and at some point in the week, I think we all got to know at least one of them!

Jenny made herself a map to help her remember the way!

As the competition approached, flags and banners appeared and the valley filled with some of the best paddlers from around the world. Before I knew it, I was launching off the rock to take my individual long race. I’d been pretty good at remembering the lines in practice and the first half of the race went well – I was making some quick lines. As I went into the boulder garden after the mandatory right line (see map above!), I took a wrong turn and went the wrong side of boulder. I immediately knew this wasn’t going to be good and got stuffed underneath it.

The organisers had been quite cunning, splitting the field in half and making one half do safety while the others raced. This was in addition to the Italian “Red Cross” (the “professional safety team” that had also provided safety at the European Rafting Champs where the terrible incident had happened just the week before) and I can tell you it was a bloody good job the paddlers were on safety for each other! However, due to my wrong turn I had put myself under a rock in the middle of the river, downstream of the nearest safety cover. I managed to pull myself up using the rock so that my head and shoulders were out of the water. Realising I was effectively on my own and knowing I only had limited strength to keep myself above water, I summoned all my strength to get myself out from the under the rock, before self-rescueing to an eddy in the middle of the river.

Despite knowing that my time was fairly irrelevant now, I was determined to finish the race. I let a few of the other ladies pass while I gathered myself before pulling back out. I was now just cruising, playing it safe, but ended up overtaking one of the other girls by “left curler lip”. However, she was then overtaken by the fastest lady of the day, Anne Heubner, so I pulled into an eddy to let them both pass before the “big slide”. After being first lady to start, I was the last one to the finish line. The timing officials clearly gave up on me as I was given no time on the initial results sheet – I wonder how they knew I was ok?! I was offered a re-run, but declined as being placed anything but last would not have been fair on the other competitors.

Video from Chuisella Races – courtesy of Teva

That night all of the competitors were fed at a fancy restaurant in Traversella. The courses kept coming and the wine kept flowing which made for a wonderfully sociable evening, including some customary drinking from wetsuit boots. It turned out I didn’t have the biggest carnage of the day… a dislocated shoulder, several beatdowns and most notably Eric Deguils half-helix-to-paddle-snap combo on the top drop of the King of the Falls section. Impressively he finished the race C-1 stylee.

Day 2 was reserved for the 3-man team races on the section we’d races individually the day before. The Team GB Boys gave a the spectators a performance that could only have been improved by being sped up and set to Benny Hill music… As usual, Team New Zealand dominated.

Team Benny Hill getting caught-up on the entry to “bridge drop” – Photos: Lowri Davies

By Day 3, the event had moved down to the slalom course in Ivrea for the Sprint, Slalom and Boater-x. The hot weather combined with rain in the hills had brought the river up and the course was pretty much in flood – the holes, laterals and recirculating eddies even stronger than when we’d paddled it earlier in the week.

Determined to put on a better show than at the Chuisella, I managed to find the clean line on my second run to claim the second fastest Ladies sprint time, 3rd in sprint overall. Nouria Newman was looking really fast – so fast that doing the second half of the course upside-down didn’t stop her being the fastest Lady in sprint. It was a slalom paddlers’ domination all-round with Mike Dawson winning in the mens event.

Lowri in the sprint – Photo thanks to Nouria Newman

After lunch it was time to stick up some slalom gates and see how we all did using the official international slalom rules… but with creek boats. Surprisingly the slalom paddlers didn’t dominate this event quite as much in the mens class, with several of the World’s top slalom guys actually missing gates. Clearly this was a tough course! Nouria’s World class slalom experience unsurprisingly earned her the top spot again – with only 3 or 4 women making all of the gates.

If this was a tough slalom course to conquer on your own, imagine how hard it would be to do it as a team of 3 – starting together off a ramp and all needing to finish within 15 seconds of one another. Penalties from each team-member accumulated. What a spectacle! And Team Benny Hill (aka GBR) did their part for the comedy element by knocking each other off line, colliding mid-flow and plenty of “I’m going, no he’s going, no I’m going, no hang on…” moments. The comedy title was toughly fought though, with one team deciding to do it in borrowed playboats which they didn’t even fit in – resulting in plenty of carnage and at least one swim!

Day 3 Highlights from sportcommunities on Vimeo.

(Gives a great shot of the slalom whole course at about 2:20)

After a long day of competing, there was only one thing left to do… P-A-R-T-Y!

I’m not sure whether it was the French, Swiss, Brits or Belgians that won… they all gave it a good go…

The final day of competition was the boater-x. Heats of 4, starting off the ramp all together and with two mandatory hit-gates in eddies down the course… this event never failed to provide entertainment, surprises and upsets right to the end. It was certainly a spectacular way to end the event!

As soon as my races finished, it was time for me to pack up and head over the hills into France – for it was time to do some work… well, coaching and guiding anyway

More of my photos from the event can be found on Flickr. Some really cool photos and videos from the professionals are available of the official event website.