B ON THE MISH: Teva Outdoor Extreme Games, Italy

After flying from Denver to Munich, Sam, Kat and I drove 8 hours south to the Valchiusella, in northern Italy, passing through Austria and Switzerland on the way. With no map we had to rely solely on Sam Sam, our human GPS, who was running on the 2010 experience map version. I have to say he did remarkably well, the road system in Europe is not straight forward, and unlike the USA, roads go all over the place and we didn't get lost. We arrived around midnight, quickly set up out 2 man tent, and the 3 of us piled in - COZY. At least we weren't gonna be cold. We woke in the morning to a couple of not so polite toots from a passing car, and realised the free camping situation here is not the same as home.

The Valchiusella is home to the creeking section of the Kayak Freeride World Champs, held at the TEVA Outdoor Extreme Games in Ivrea, Italy.
The Competition consists of individual and team competitions, with 5 individual events and 3 team events. A creek race time trial, King of the falls race, short sprint race, slalom and boater cross.
Its quite a full-on schedule with 8 races in four days.

I managed 14th in the creek race, I had made a couple of mistakes but generally I had a smooth run, just lacking fitness. I had qualified for the 'king of the falls' race so I was happy. Mike Dawson of NZ dominated the field, with Honza Lasko of Czech and Sam Sutton not too far behind.

The King of the Falls race does not count towards overall points but there is money on offer. Its held on a short but very steep section of rapids above the creek race section, and only the top 20 in the creek race qualify. The rapids are pretty full-on, and quite a few of the competitors who qualify for this race choose not to participate, to make sure they don't injure themselves for the rest of the races. I managed 10th which was sweet, I didn't paddle too hard, I just really wanted to stick the lines as I'd only been down once the day before. Ron Fisher of Switzerland was the quickest down the course with Maxime Mitaut of France in 2nd and Sam Sutton NZ in 3rd.

Sam Sutton jumping into the gutter on his way to 3rd in king of the falls.

Shuttle service. Just like home.

The next day was the Teams creek race, with Myself teaming up with Mike Dawson and Sam Sutton to form the sole NZ team. To be honest it was a bit daunting being in the team with these 2. I was just hoping I could hang on to them. We actually had a super quick run, but a mistake 20m from the finish cost us a few seconds and we had to settle for 2nd, finishing 1 second behind the Czech team.

From here the Event moved down out of the Alps to the white water course in Ivrea, for the sprint, slalom and boater-cross events.

The Teams sprint was held between 10:30pm and 1am under lights, which made a pretty cool atmosphere to race in, with a big audience of Ivrea'n locals turning out to watch. We ended up in 3rd and only hundredths of seconds behind the French and German teams, despite posting the fastest single run time of the night. We made a mistake at the start of our first run not hearing the starter which cost us a win in this event. All good though, we still had the slalom to come back.

Teams sprint. Photo Martina Wegman

Finishing strong, trying to hang on.

The slalom course was challenging, but the major obstacle in our way was the German team. This team is made up fully from world cup slalom paddlers, Jakobus Anonym, Lukas Kalkbrenner and Paul Bockelmann. Unfortunately we were unable to match these guys down the course, and we finished in 3rd place.

Overall we finished in 2nd place, with the Germans winning and Czech in 3rd. I ended up 20th in the individual competition. I have learned so much from my first couple of events, and will be so much stronger in competition next year, I'm looking forward to it already.