STEPHANIE RHODES-BOSCH- Equestrian

Five Points Horse Trials

After a very successful weekend at the Carolina Horse Park, I would have to say that I’m feeling very good about my plans for the rest of the fall season.

I had a very successful return to the Advanced level with Ollie, finishing 2nd after adding just one rail to our competitive dressage score. Obviously, after making a mistake and popping off at Richland, I was bound and determined to make things go well at Five Points. Tremaine Cooper certainly gave us enough to do on the 7:17sec Advanced track, but that was just how I wanted it. One of the reasons that I made the 6 hour hike to Raeford, NC was because I knew the track would be awesome and it didn’t leave me wanting more!!

The offset houses out of the barn, two tough coffin complexes and several other combinations that made you ride forward and stick to your guns was exactly what I needed to rebuild my confidence at this level. I rode with a purpose and Ollie stepped right up to the plate and rocked around like a champ.
Little miss Vienna completed her second Training level event in style, shaving 9 points off her last dressage test and adding just one tired-pony rail to her score. She is so brave cross country, which makes my job easy. I am focusing on getting the ride right for an even better dressage test with this mare in the future. She has all the pieces, but she’s definitely a challenge!! She finished 8th in a large, competitive division and I couldn’t be more pleased.

Now, back to rainy Virginia ( yayyy for the footing… boo for the fact that I just bought two cans of camp dry for every thing I own)

Wishing everyone luck at the American Championships in Georgia this weekend, and looking forward to a few weeks of dressage and fitness work on the nice squishy ground!!
Stay tuned

JOHN

Bratislava Life

It’s been an eventful couple of weeks since I touched down in Prague. With the World Cup Final, a trip to the 2011 Sprint Canoe World Championships, and now training full-on here in Bratislava, there really hasn’t been a stop. 

The World Cup Final in Prague didn’t go as well as hoped. As I have referenced a number of times, with the amount of time I have spent training and living there, Prague is like my European home course. I was looking to better my performance from last year’s World Cup, and after a strong couple of runs in the qualifier, I was feeling on form. I was off to a strong start in the semi-final, and was fastest at the midway split, however, I took a touch in the lower section of the course that not only added two-seconds to my run, but slowed me down as I became a little more passive to avoid touching another gate. In Prague, if you are fast enough, you can get away with one-touch....but two-touches, forget it (unless your Vavrinc Hradliek, or Matuesz Polaczyk). Anyways, I ended up 13th, and as you can imagine was a bit disappointed. As this was the World Cup Final, I ended up ranked 12th on the overall World Cup.

Following Prague, the team headed south to Bratislava, Slovakia, where we are now based, and will be through to the World Championships. Seeing that this will be the site for our World Champs in September, getting as much training on the course here will certainly be advantageous. Training is going well, the beauty with Bratislava, there is always something new to learn, which keeps it fresh here. We can also tell that the Worlds are quickly coming.  Everyday something new is being built at the course. I am getting excited to race.

This past weekend, coach Michal and I ventured further south to Szeged, Hungary to watch my all of my friends race in the 2011 Sprint Canoe World Championships. I have never been to a Sprint race before, and since Hungary is the epi-center of Sprint Canoeing, I figured why not! We were not disappointed. As most of you know, Adam VanKoeverdan dusted the competition in the K1-M 1000M final. It was inspiring to watch....and let me tell you, it was no fluke. I don’t know any other athlete who trains as hard as Adam does, and to see the hard work pay off, again, reassured my belief that hard work does pay dividends. 

Talk soon,

John

NIKOLA GIRKE- Sailing

After several nice summery days here in Weymouth, it was back to good old UK weather! I woke up to the heavy rain several times this past night...and sure enough, this morning was no better. My races were scheduled for 2pm and luckily by that time the front passed, it was beautiful and sunny with some breeze.

For the entire time of my pre-race warm-up/getting dialed in, it was fully planing, but then just at the start the wind died quite a bit and we ended starting with our daggerboard down in railing mode. I did not have a great start, I was too close to others - both from above and below and quickly got rolled. I had planned on going left up the first beat - so decided when the breeze came up a bit again to go planing. I was soon in clear air and with some good speed and height, I was passing boards. I tacked just shy of the port layline and it looked to me that I was in the lead...until about 3/4 up the track when the wind went a bit right and the boards that went right were coming in hot. Needless to say, I did not round first nor did I round in the first 10. I battled the rest of the race and with a few smart calls up the second upwind, I worked myself up to 7th.

Race Two: Everyone had figured out that the right side of the course was favoured by this point and thus 3/4's of the fleet started on port (heading to the right side). I started on port as well - but once again was too close to the boards below me and lost my ability to sail high and low working the waves. Dirty air is never good and thus I decided to foot off (sail lower than those around me) which in turn had me sailing through them to leeward. The leaders were gone at this point (they had great starts with clean lanes) and I just had to try to catch up as much as I could. Bit by bit I took boards down and by the third upwind mark I was in 3rd. On the last downwind the wind lightened off a bit, I didn't gybe in the proper spot missing a gust, then got dirty air from the boards behind/on top of me, and I had trouble staying on a plane. Then one of my battens broke during a gybe which kept me from planing out of my gybe, I wallowed a bit while the others planed past me from both sides...ARGH!!! So, 200m from the finish I went from 3rd to 8th. Definitely disappointing and some lessons to be learned from that....I must fight to plane no matter what!!!

I sit in 8th at the moment. Many more races to go...

And attached is a picture of me getting my sail all stickered up....GO CANADA!!! no mistaking what country I represent :)

Nikola

NIKOLA GIRKE- Sailing

After an incredible 3 weeks of training, I'm going home tomorrow, but just for 10 days before I head back to Weymouth for the Pre-Olympics. Some may ask why I am going home for such a short time...with all that jetlag to deal with etc... and well, over the years I've learned how I work and perform at my best. Five weeks away is my cut-off and if I didn't go home, I'd be gone for 7+, whilst racing the Pre-Olympics in those last 2 weeks. Plus it keeps my training away intense and exciting!

The training camp in Santander with the girls was awesome... We pushed each other hard both on and off the water. Sailing, gym, surfing, running, biking, yoga, eating and sleeping was on the menu each day and by the end of the 11 days I was too tired to sleep. My body had had it... I was done, I had given it my all.




My last day in Santander started with a morning surf, then went straight from the beach onto a bus that took me to Bilbao 1.5hrs away, from where I flew to Germany. Thunderstorms and missed connections had me and 3 others stranded in Munich late at night when we wanted to get to Nuernberg, and thus Lufthansa ended up sending us in a taxi. Yikes....a 250euro cab ride. Three days in Germany to visit with my family and go to my cousins wedding was my treat for the long day of traveling. And all was great until I got some sort of stomach flu...

Arriving in Weymouth, still feeling a bit under the weather, it was perfect that there was absolutely no wind on what should have been my first training day. I soon regained my strength and the past 4 days of training have been really good. Both yesterday and today it was very windy...about 15 degrees with intermittent squalls that had the wind get up to about 30+ knots today. Being out in those conditions for more than 2hrs each day is very tiring and I thought it was a good idea to call it a day when I lead around the top mark on the 4th practice race of today. A nice way to end my training here in Weymouth... and the sun even came out to dry everything nicely as I packed up.


Cheers,
Nikola

CAN SMEDLEY- Canoe/Kayak

World Cup #2 & #3

It’s always fun and exciting to explore new race sites and cities, and this year we had two new places we got to check out.  The site for the second World Cup was in L’Argentiere, France and it’s a beautiful little town on the edge of the Alps.  The water is glacier fed which makes it very cold.  As for the race course it was long and open, and combined with the altitude made racing interesting.  Qualifiers went well as I had a fast second run without penalties allowing me to move on to the semi-final.  My semi-final run went well but I touched two of the gates which added 4 seconds to my time resulting in a 25^th place finish.

We then moved on to Leipzig, Germany for World Cup #3.   The site reminded me of a slalom course in the United States where we frequently train.  So even though it was a new for me it felt as though I knew the river.  And as it was my best finish at the World Cup races so far I would like to think that it helped.  The day the races started the wind had picked up making it even tougher to stay away from the poles.  I again pulled through on my second qualifier run and I was able to stay clean and finished 8th, easily putting me through to the next day of racing.  It was a nice change being able to watch some of the paddlers in front me do the course and give me an idea of what might be the fastest line.  Unfortunately I took 2 touches in the semi-final putting me back but I still had a fast time overall so I finished 16^th.

Last week some teammates and I decided to do some training in Bratislava as we had a few weeks between races and it is always good to get comfortable with course that will be hosting the World Championships and the Olympic Qualifiers.  But tomorrow I head back to Canada for a small break before preparing for our National Champions in 2 weeks.  It will be nice to back home for a few days in this long racing season!

Cam

ROBIN RANDALL- Waterpolo

Hi everyone!

Robin Randall here from Team Canada Men's Water Polo Team.  A lot has been happening since I last wrote you, and I'm excited to fill you in on the details...

June saw the squad travel to two cities in Montenegro en route to Florence, Italy, and the 2011 World League Super Finals.  In Herceg Novi and Podgorica, Montenegro, Canada trained with that nation's team daily to prepare for Florence where they would square off against the top teams in the world.

In Florence, Canada managed to beat China in their final match, securing seventh place.  In other matches the Canucks fell short to Montenegro, Serbia, Croatia and Australia in hard-fought battles outdoors, where temperatures exceeded 35 C daily.

Now the team finds themselves en route to the 14th FINA World Championships in Shanghai, China.  Having trained with Montenegro again in Guangzhou (formerly Canton), the Canadians will face Croatia, Japan, and Brazil in the preliminary round before defending their best-ever eighth place ranking from the previous World Championship.

Watch our boys in action by following the links online at:

www.fina.org <http://www.fina.org>

Thanks for reading, and as always, GO CANADA GO!!!

Robin Randall
Fulfilling your goaltending needs
Since 1987

JOHN HASTINGS- Canoe/Kayak

World Cup #1 Recap

So, I finished 8th in the first world cup of the season. I feel a slight sense of vindication making the final here in Tacen, especially after missing the semi at last years World Championships. So am I happy with my result, kind of. Making a World Cup final...it's tough, and I am pumped to have achieved that, but just like everyone else in that final, I kind of wanted more. 

After my semi, I was sitting in eight; however, I knew I had a little left in the tank and could probably go a second or two faster. In the final, I got off to a fast start, but got tied up in the tough gate 4 - 5 combo. I tried making up for the time-loss by cutting lines, but in Tacen where the water ebbs and flows like the stock exchange, this decision worked against me. Needless to say, my time was slower than my semi time and after I picked up a touch at the bottom of the course winning a medal became pretty unlikely. I am positive though, and as my dad always says, there's always another race.

You can check out the finals and the semi-finals at http://video.digotel.com/eurovisionbest/icf/index.html. Scroll over to Canoe Slalom World Cup K1-M Finals and cue up the video to 1:19:00.

Anyways, highlight of the week was meeting a "family friend" of Taylor Swift at the annual Parallel Slalom in the downtown core of Ljubljana. Paul, a huge fan of Taylor, gladly handed over his phone number to this guy as he promised he would deliver it to her, and get her to call him next time she was in Calgary. I was a little more skeptical of this guy and this relationship...so to test him, I requested he get Taylor to simply tweet good luck to the two of us for the race.....yep, that didn't happen....I am not going to say I am a better judge of character as I will admit I will be pretty jealous if she does call Paul....and I want to stay positive for the little guy. 

Anyways, off to France today for World Cup #2. We will be in Southern France in L'Argentiere La Bessee. 

Ciao,

John