2011 Throwdown season ends with a full day of paddling and an awesome after party :)

When – Saturday September 17th.
Where – The Riviere St-Charles in Valleyfield, Quebec.

Saturday started with a sunny but brisk morning. Paddlers started showing up at 9:30 am to get registered and get ready for another fun boater cross. At 10:30 we had 3 categories of racers: The first was our women’s category.  Cheryl McGregor, Sylvie Lebel, Emily Zwanenburg, Sabina Finnie and Shaunna Neil-Martin. The race was excellent. The course was intentionally made tough with a couple must make moves to ensure the challenge and add some excitement to the event. The first upstream gate was in an eddy set just above a retentive hole. This assures us a good show. It also reminded everyone of the importance of never quitting. Cheryl held the lead throughout but at the tough gate, Emily and Sylvie collided pushing both into the hole and missing the gate. Shaunna is a new paddler who came to us from Petawawa, worked super hard to keep up with the pack. She did great. The second upstream gate proved challenging but with some encouragement form her friend Graham she never quit and completed every gate assuring her a second place in the race. We were all proud.
The next 3 heats consisted of our men’s category combined with the Junior men. What a great show. The 1st upstream gate gave us the intended results. A big challenge and some good beatdowns. Our regular racers Zachary Zwanenburg, Sean Hakvoort, Zachary Hakvoort, Francois Bergeron-Proulx, Aimé-Jean Lavigne, Louis-Phillipe Legare and the rest of the kids from the Valleyfield slalom club ( 3 Sams, Max, Marc-Antoine, Charles, and Aaron) were joined by Simon LaChance, Graham Kent from Pembrooke, Frederick and Eric and Charles Davidson who   gave us a great show pushing themselves and each other really hard The highlights were our new paddlers: Graham rocked his first race. Graham is a very new paddler (been a month!) and he got worked in the hole and hung on tight and finished the race. Eric Davidson and his brother Charles ran their first race too. Both these young men come from the CReW Youth Challenge Kayak Program and showed us that they were listening throughout the summer. Well done boys!

After the race and the race awards, Aime-Jean and Louis-Phillipe organized an impromptu mass start race without rules! I could not resist and jumped in the race. What a hoot. 11 paddlers start together in a tough mix of slalom and no rules boatercross. Manic is a hole that does not treat you well if there is more than one paddler in it. There were many. hehehehe. No one completed all the gates but everyone had fun.

Next up is the main event – Seaway Valley WK Hometown Throwdown. It seems that the last event of every year brings us the best crowd. This year was no exception. The morning race crew competed and we added Dany Trottier to the men’s group. The competition was solid. 7  paddlers did their rides on mini wave while the advanced group watched and cheered. The kids and new paddlers gave us surfs, spins and back surfs mixed in with some great old school shows (paddle twirls, air guitar and a tomahawk) So very cool to see these new paddlers take on the sport.
The advanced boaters gave us a good show as well. 4 women( junior and adults) and 12 men (Juniors and adults) stood up to manic and did their best. Loops, a few huge entry moves, massive air loops and aerial space gods, splitwheels, cartwheels and a felix were on the table. Was very cool. In the end the results were as follows:

Down River race:

Men:

1st Louis-Philippe Légaré

2nd Zachary Zwanenburg

3rd François Bergeron-Proulx

Women:

1st Cheryl McGregor

2nd Shaunna Neil-Martin

3rd Emily Zwanenburg

Rodeo:

Men A

1st François Bergeron-Proulx  175 points

2nd Frederick 167 points

3rd Aimé-Jean 118 points

Junior men A

1st Zachary Zwanenburg  342 points  He was also the 1st overall.

2nd Maxime Leboeuf 62 points

3rd Samuel Primeau 48 points

Women A ( junior and adults)

1st Cheryl McGregor 139 points

2nd Sylvie Lebel 17 points

3rd Emily Zwanenburg 15 points

Men and Women B ( junior and adults )

1st Charles Demeule

2nd Samuel Pharand

3rd Zachary Hakvoort

The only C-1 of the day was Zachary Zwanenburg, 23 points, no swimming!

At the end of the day, everyone had fun and walked away with a sweet reward from our sponsors too

The day ended with a BBQ for those who could make it. Food drinks, cake, coffee and fireworks were provided by the Zwanenburg family at our home. It was a great time and a wonderful way to end the freestyle season in our region.

Thanks to all our participants, family, volunteers and sponsors. Without you all my life would be a lot less fun

See y’all on the river soon,

Robert Zwanenburg
www.cornwallwhiteweater.com

July 16th – WK Seaway Valley boater-cross and throwdown

Another crazy fun day on the riviere St-Charles in Valleyfield, Quebec went off without a hitch!
(First let me apologize for the lack of pics and video. We had a camera melt down. the result. 2 weeks of photos and media gone….)

Saturday morning was a warm friendly of day. Sylvie and hitched the CReW trailer, loaded he kids and trucked off to Valleyfield at 9 am to set up for registration. July is a funny month and you can never be sure if the event will be packed or sparse. We got lucky. The kids from the slalom club in Valleyfield came out and with a few of our regulars we had a good good.
15 people signed up for the boater-cross and 12 competed. Last month we started above the tubes for a 2 on 2 race but this time we opted for a larger group start.
I walked the kids through the course which included 3 must make upstream gates in tiny eddies. 3 heats fed to 2 which fed t o a final. We also ran a B group (all those who were bumped off in the first heats). Everyone got loads of rides.

The upstream gates are awesome as they force the racers to cross each other. A crafty paddler can use these moments to jump up as much os 3 places in the race.
Everyone raced fair and clean but there were a few very awesome rivalries (Max and Zachary) and some sweet collisions without injuries.
Sportsmanship was 100% and thanks to the good gate judges the only contested move was overturned by the consensus of the judges.

The finals of the A group ended as follows:

A1- Louis-Philippe Legare
A2- Zachary Zwanenburg
A3- Marc-Antoine Dubois
A4- Sam Lizotte
A5- Max Leboeuf
A6- Francois Lizotte

In the second group the final places ended as follows:
B1-simon lefevbre
B2- Charles Demeule
B3- Yannick laviolette
B4- Jocelyn Quenneville
B5- Emily Zwanenburg
B6- colin Poirier

When the race was over every one stopped for lunch and we got geared up for a 1 PM freestyle event.
Something about afternoon, people come out of the woodwork
When we  were ready to go the we had 16 people register and 14 competed What makes the afternoon event a hoot is the number of spectators hanging out to watch.
The judges had to keep up whith Francois BP as he threw down fast and furious He also showed up a helix which is a first at Manic
From the others we saw, entry moves, loops, space gods, cartwheels, split-wheels, back loops and more. From the shore we could hear the cheers from the friends and family who came out to watch. Soo nice to be encouraged:)

When it was over the scores looked like this:

Name	Score	Category
François Lizotte	64	C1M
zachkayak	188	K1JM
Maxime Leboeuf	74	K1JM
Sam Lizotte	40	K1JM
yannick laviolette	27	K1JM
simon lefevbre	20	K1JM
Charles Demeule	19	K1JM
Emily Zwanenburg	22	K1JW
Francois Proulx	339	K1M
Aime-Jean Lavigne	158	K1M
Louis-Philippe Legare	102	K1M
Jocelyn Quenneville	47	K1M
Jimmy bergeron	29	K1M

Well done to everyone who stood up to manic.

Moments to remember:
Young Sam, albeit after the event, looped his Fun 1 1/2 for the first time and kept looping for the rest of the day! Who hoo!
Emily Zwanenburg, stopped during her race to make sure that Colin was OK after his swim in the second heat. Sportsmanship matters. Well done Emily.

When everyone joined up back at the trailer at the put in, we had fun with the awards and then the prizes from our sponsors.
Everyone walked away with something for their efforts.

Our format of the double header works well and our paddlers are happy with it. So now we slowly started thing about our next event of 2011. We decided that the next one should be when folks are just thinking about school and the end of the season so we are hosting the next double header on September 10. Same time and same place.

I hope we will see loads of people looking for that final event of the year.

Till then there is loads of paddling to do. July is not over and august will have its memories to build still.

Until next time,

Paddle hard and have fun,

Robert Zwanenburg
(looking good in his Chaco Z2 Vibram Yampas )
www.cornwallwhitewater.com

PS: we are waiting on some pics from a friend and as soon as we get ‘em they will be posted.

Seaway Valley ends the year with a Boatercross Survivor

Saturday October 2nd 2010. Riviere St-Charles, Valleyfield, Quebec

Saturday October 2nd 2010.
Riviere St-Charles, Valleyfield, Quebec.

2010 has been an awesome year in the Seaway Valley. This year we decided to end the World Kayak series with something a bit. A Boatercross!
The weather did not do much for us but despite the cool temps  8 paddlers turned up to try the first ever boatercross in Valleyfield.
The site gets it’s water from 2 huge pipes them run under the road at the top of the river. This is a great place to Launch paddlers (2 at a time) down through the course.
The question on everyone’s mind was who will get the better start position and how was I going to decide who raced who. GThe Answe for both: Rock Paper Scissors So adult like

The first run was awesome.  There are 3 great places for entertainment. The drop at the start brings the boaters close together. Manic offers a bit of a challenge and we ran everyone through our local keeper hole where we were blessed with a few good shows of “oh no… I am stuck…”. Not big carnage but just enough to keep it interesting for the newer kids

Click here to view the embedded video.

Each race brought up closer and closer sorting out the paddlers into an A and a B class.In the end the results were as follows:

A Class:
1st place went to Sean Hakvoort
2nd went to Zachary Hakvoort
3rd place weent to Sebastien
4th went to Cheryl McGregor

B Class

1st place was Zachary Zwanenburg
2nd place went to Sylvie Lebel
3rd place went to Aime-Jean Lavigne
4th place went to Emily Zwanenburg

The truth is, everyone won! Sylvie gained loads of confidence during the start process. Emily ran the tubes for the first time and came back to do it again . Sebastien (despite getting a boat in the face at the bottom of the start chute) came back and stepped up his game. This kid has a lot of potential and I am hoping to see him train and compete for more serious events next summer.

The Hakvoort brothers…. What can I say about my 2 favorite young giants? They are awesome. No fear, loads of enthusiasm and did I mention they are big boys? Holding them back in the start gate kept this old guys arms under stress for a long time
Aime-Jean and Zachary Z. put on a great show getting in each others way and keeping the other at arms reach till the end. Well done. Cheryl is always fun to paddle with and puts on a great effort and showing at every event I get to host. Nice This time she also gave us the best trashings in every hole she could find:) And we are always proud of her.

So, what do we do now? Plan for pool competitions and fun.

Thank you all for being part of another great summer WK Seaway Valley Season

Cheers

Robert Zwanenburg
www.cornwallwhitewater.com