SARAH BOUDENS- Canoe/Kayak - Slalom

I love spring time racing!  It’s a great time to get yourself back into the racing swing of things without too much pressure to perform so early in the season.  I’ve done 4 weekends of racing so far here in the UK and I’ve really been enjoying it.  I’ve also been quite happy with my results which feels great and gives me some confidence going into our team selection races. 

Two weekends ago I competed in Nottingham, England as a guest in one of the British Team selection events.  The pressure was on for the British athletes to try to make their Junior and U23 teams.  I was taking the race very seriously as well as I’ve spent quite a bit of time training in Nottingham and I really wanted to see what I was capable of on a familiar course.  I placed 5th In Saturday’s competition and 6th in Sunday’s race.  The courses were very challenging and unusual to say the least.

In whitewater slalom we’re allowed unlimited training on the whitewater with training gates but don’t get to practice the race gates once they’re set.  Our first race run is the first time we’ve ever done that specific gate combination.  The goal in training is to try to practice as many gate combinations as you can in an attempt to predict what may be set for a race.  Sometimes it can be quite surprising what the organizers come up with for the race and Nottingham was no exception.  Over the two days of racing there were multiple moves I had never tried before even after months of training on the course.  That’s one of the reasons I really like this sport.  It’s always different and exciting!

This past weekend I was competing up in Grandtully, Scotland.  I had a great weekend and placed 2^nd.  It’s my first podium finish in the UK and I’m extremely happy with the way I paddled.

Spring time paddling also produces what us paddlers call the “hand tan.”  Even though it’s getting warmer outside the water can still be quite cold which means it’s warm enough to not have to wear something on our hands but still cold enough to wear a dry top.  This results in funny looking tanned hands.  It does mean though that summer is on its way and short sleeved paddling tops too!  I can’t wait.

NIKOLA GIRKE- Sailing

After the crazy windy day I couldn't sleep at all that night probably because my adrenaline was still pumping too much and my whole body hurt. Losing a night's sleep definitely didn't help the next few days...

The next days were super tough long ones: the mornings started with an offshore breeze, building to a super nice 15 knots. Before the race, I did my sail tuning to make sure I was set up right for these conditions. A slow race committee combined with the guys fleet starting before us and having general recalls (which meant they had to restart several times), meant our start time was continually delayed. Finally we got underway, only to have the wind back off... The first upwind still had planing conditions, but by the first downwind it was marginal planing - for the second upwind, the wind continued to shut off and it was already pumping conditions, while the last downwind was painfully slow and lumpy, only to finish off the race with what seemed like a never ending slalom (supposed to be fast, exciting and 2 minutes long) that took 8 minutes, in near glassy (no wind) conditions. Needless to say, very tricky and almost impossible to catch up as the distances between sailors was increasing as the wind was decreasing. Then the wind completely shut off and thus we were sent ashore to wait for the wind to fill in from the other direction.

Lots of waiting... In the afternoon the seabreeze started to fill in and we were sent out for our second race of the day. The wind conditions for the rest of the days were always between 7-11knots. The water in the bay of Palma is also quite shallow making it quite lumpy - definitely very tough for me as I'm one of the heavier girls and I'm not the fastest in these conditions. The wind was also oscillating slowly (going from right to left back and forth) and I just couldn't ever get it right. When I went to the left, the wind swung to the right and when I went right, the wind went to the left. In those 3 middle days of the regatta I added many points to my score as I finished in the late 20's for most of them. Frustrating races they were, but I learned from some of my mistakes and finally, on the last day I actually put into practice some of the things I had learned from the previous days. Before the start I was very diligent in monitoring the wind, devising my game plan and sticking to it. For myself, I also needed to finish the regatta off on a better note... 
 
Which I did! On the last day I sailed to finish a solid 18th in these difficult conditions yet was in the game the whole time. In the 2nd race I rounded the top mark in 3rd, and after losing a few boards on the downwinds (I just couldn't plane as long and as deep as some of the others) to finish 7th. Happy to end the regatta on a positive, my last races also helped me move back up to 18th overall in the regatta.

Dead tired - I am now enjoying some days off (no sailing although I still have my regular fitness routine to uphold). I haven't even had internet, so I've really been out of the loop too.

On Sunday the training continues in Hyeres, France... Where the next World Cup Race: Semaine Olympique Francaise will take place from April 23-29th.


Nikola
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www.nikolagirke.com <http://www.nikolagirke.com>

ROBIN RANDALL- Waterpolo

Hello, everyone! It's Robin Randall, Captain of the Canadian Olympic Men's Water Polo Team here with another report.

Things are going swimmingly, if you will pardon the pun, as preparations are underway for the big tournaments this season. Coming up at the end of the month will be Canadian National Championships in Langley, BC. Teams participating will be two each from Quebec and Alberta and three from British Columbia. I will again be helping the Calgary Torpedoes in the quest for domestic glory. We hope to repeat last year's podium finish.

Coming up in May, our participation in the 2011 FINA World League has been confirmed and we will travel to California to determine our seeding in that competition. Finals are to be played in Tuscany, Italy.

It is only a scant 102 days until the FINA World Championships in Shanghai, China, and we are aiming to achieve another Canadian best. Until now we have managed eighth in the world.

Until next time,
Your goalie,
Robin Randall

Robin Randall
Goaltenders' Union President
Dictated but not read

NIKOLA GIRKE- Sailing

Hola from Palma de Mallorca, Spain!

After what seemed like an extended layover (9 days that felt like 3) in Vancouver; just enough time to unpack, do laundry, train both on the water and in the gym, run all my errands, do laundry again and then repack, I arrived in Palma de Mallorca last Sunday the 27th.

I can't believe it's been a full week of training here already. There are so many good girls to train with here, so I've been able to check in and see how I'm doing. The weather's been great and surprisingly warm, but we've mostly had lighter wind conditions. The racing starts tomorrow, and will continue until Saturday the 9th.

Princess Sofia Trophy is the 3rd of this year's World Cup Circuit, the first in Europe, so we have a big turnout in the fleets. I think we have 50ish girls racing the RSX.

To follow the races and results go to: http://www.trofeoprincesasofia.org/
You can also sign up for facebook or twitter updates.

I'm hoping we get a variety of wind conditions throughout the week. I'll keep you posted.

Attached are a few pictures of me and some of my surroundings!

Hasta luego!


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www.nikolagirke.com <http://www.nikolagirke.com> 

NIKOLA GIRKE- Sailing

Well, no news can mean many things... However this time it just means that I've been too busy enjoying Brazil to take time out to write an update.

I was home for just two weeks after Miami OCR before heading to Brazil. I was absolutely drained when I came home from the long bout of intense training and racing, and thus all I did during my first week was recover.  For week 2 I was back training, both in the gym and I got one great day on the water: sunny, windy (25-30knots), big-ish waves, fresh snow on the mountains, and yes... T'was a bit chilly too. 7 degrees plus wind chill meant extreme pain in the hands once the thawing process began onshore. Knowing that I was coming to Brazil a few days later, I couldn't really complain about anything!

On February 14th I flew to Rio, via Toronto and San Paolo. Once in Rio, I was picked up by Davidson, the taxi driver who all of us windsurfers use to shuttle us back and forth to Buzios. I had met him in 2006 and he was my tour guide then for a day in Rio, so it was great to be met by a familiar and friendly face at the airport. A very long day of traveling, but well worth it! Following the 3 hour drive, we arrived to Bimba's Windsurf Club in Buzios, aka... Paradise!

  The next morning, bright and early (about 5am my time) I was on the water with the training group. Marina from Spain, Bryony from the UK, Laura from Italy, Jazmin from Argentina, a few Brazilian youth guys, and myself. Windy and warm, it was a nice start to my training in Brazil. The next 4 days were quite windy, tiring all of us out. To vary it up in training we did some destination sails - sailing around 4 different islands, to a secret surf spot that you can only get to by boat and of course the usual board handling drills.


Week two saw a change in weather (stifling hot and little breeze) and our training group shrank as some left to go back home for a bit, while some of the guys had a competition to attend.  We trained early in the morning, guys and girls together for some pumping sessions. Alex, the Spanish coach was creative in his drills and made it really quite fun for us - as we did match racing with/against the guys and other good drills. Short and intense sessions were great cause the crazy heat made all of us quite slow and lazy on land. On top of the on water training, it was quite challenging to fit in gym and cardio training in the heat, but when the day was all done, bedtime was incredibly welcoming.




I've had a few days off and a bunch of us went sightseeing around the Buzios peninsula with a rented "Bugre". There are so many beautiful spots and beaches to explore here, leaving no doubt to why it is the weekend destination of the rich of Rio. Geriba beach, the beach directly on the opposite side of the peninsula to where we sail from has been pumping with waves. Many days after sailing we'd go there for a surf. We've had several group dinners - either freshly caught fish by Bimba's (the Brazilian windsurfer's) brother or just meat Brazilian style. Good times! Attached are a bunch of pics. None of sailing though. Hard to take those myself :)

I can't believe it's already been two weeks of training here, with two more to go before I head home.  Time is flying...


Nikola

CHARMAINE REID- Badminton

Reid and Grether Settle for Silver in Iran

                                             
While you hear daily about the unrest in the Middle East, Nicole Grether and I experienced a different side of Iran on the badminton courts.

Nicole and I traveled to Tehran to join players from over 30 countries to compete in the 21st Fajr Iran International Badminton Tournament.  While the players had to adapt both on and off the court to the culture we experienced the kindness of the Iranian players and the joy of sport.


It was a new experience for us not to have a mixed double event at an individual BWF tournament and to compete with only women or men in the hall at one time. During our matches the women did not wear a head scarf while competing, therefor the men were not allowed to watch the women play. The spectators were great as they were cheering us on and you could see they enjoyed watching the matches.


It was a bit challenging for us compete in Tehran as the capital is 1200 meters above sea level. This makes it harder to breathe because of the altitude, and also makes the shuttlecocks faster. As well the women only played one session a day making it difficult to recover properly in a short period of time. On Thursday and Friday we played 3 matches in just over 3 hours.


Away from competing on the courts on Friday there was a peaceful demonstration down the street from our hotel. The players were told to stay in their rooms until it was over just in case. They changed the schedule for the quarter finals and semi-finals, and started them after the demonstration later that evening. Although we had security guards watching over us, we were not allowed to go too far from the hotel or badminton hall until the last day when we were lucky to get a chance to see the city after the finals.


After Nicole and I won seven tournaments in a row our winning streak came to an end in the finals as we had to settle for the silver medal. We defeated two Iranian teams and a Turkish team to reach the finals and lost in a close match 21-17, 22-20 to Nimeshika Ratnasiri Achini and Samanthika Weerasasinghe Upuli from Sri Lanka.  In singles action I reached the quarter finals and Nicole had a great win in the semi-finals defeating Anne Hald and then capturing the gold with a win against Nair Dhanya from India.


It was a special experience to compete in Iran and we found the hospitality of the players and organisers to be superb.


Our next major tournaments are the All England’s Premier Super Series in Birmingham followed by the Swiss Open Grand Prix Gold in Basel starting March 8. We are currently #17 in the world.

JAMIE & ADAM CUTTS- Canoe/Kayak

We were so happy to be on our way to Australia about to start our winter training camp with a new boat. Of course, things rarely go perfectly to plan. We get to Australia, and due to some “complications” at the factory, we find out over the next few days that our boat would not be coming. Fortunately, we have some generous teammates; Cam Smedley and Ben Hayward, who let us use their C2 for the entire time here. We are definitely lucky that they brought their C2.

Moving to more exciting news, this was our first trip to Australia for training and it certainly did not disappoint. The course in Penrith, used for the 2000 Olympics is absolutely incredible. Training on a world class whitewater course in February, with most of the top paddlers in the world, in weather that hovers around 30-40°C has undoubtedly been great for the development of our skills and comfort on whitewater. Usually we wouldn’t be getting onto whitewater back home until March, it would be freezing, and not the same level of difficulty. This year we have a head start and on top of that, 2 races under our belt!

 We had our first set of races within 4 days of arriving in Australia. This consisted of 2 races during which we had a mix of results. The first wasn’t the greatest, however, our second day of racing yielded some good results, with a 4^th place finish, behind the hometown Australian boat, and two Italians, one of which was the bronze medalist from the Beijing Olympics.

The second race, the Australian Open took place on our last weekend in Australia and was certainly what we were building up to during the training camp. Times were tight in the qualifier that had a fairly open course, with the exception of 2 trickier moves. After a mediocre first run, we were sitting in 17^th place and looking to move up in the standings with a second run. Unfortunately this didn’t exactly go to plan. We came out of the gates flying on our second run doing all of the moves quickly and cleanly and were set on putting down a fast time. We, however, had a momentary lapse in concentration at the finish line of the race, flipping and drifting over the finish beam upside down. Unfortunately, this would mean that our time; which would have put us in 11^th place, did not count. Nevertheless, our first run still qualified for the semi-finals in 19^th place. The semi-final/final course was changed completely overnight and we re-focussed in preparation. Our race in the semis again, was decent, but not overly spectacular. We both agreed that at the end of the run we weren’t overly tired, when at the end of your race, you should be completely gassed.  We just needed to up the tempo a bit and kick it into the next gear.

Thanks for teammate Adrian Cole for taking the great race pictures!

As we were also in Australia for the first time, training wasn’t the only thing on our minds. On our time off, we did a fair amount of sightseeing, taking in the famous sights of Sydney such as the Opera house, walked through the botanic gardens, and the harbour front. We also went on a spectacular hike in the Blue Mountains, and did a little bit of surfing at the famous Manly and Maroubra beaches.

To sum it up, this trip was a huge benefit to our development this year and to give us a head start going into the summer racing season. We will definitely repeat the trip next year, perhaps a little longer next time. Now it’s time to buckle down, finish the school semester and look forward to the upcoming paddling season.

Cheers,

Jamie and Adam