Stone Slalom March 2009

Registered Company No 2612775

Seven club paddlers made the trip down to Stone in Staffordshire to get the 2009 season off to an early start.

Have a look at the pictures - if only to laugh at some of the facial expressions!!

Adrian provides the commentary below:

After a long, and quiet, winter, the 2009 Riverside Shouting Season got fully under way on 15th March, neatly coinciding with the Stafford and Stone Div. 3/4 Slalom. With some exciting results, it promises to be a great season. In third place, a somewhat traditional but ever popular rendition of "Up! Up! Up!" from the Massed Riparian Choir. Then, just sneaking into second, the much undervalued but truly inspirational "Paddle" Paddle", causing many of us to completely rethink our approach to the slalom discipline. But the clear winner had to be the enlightened wisdom demonstrated by one bank-side motivational guru - "Put some effort in!". - Outstanding!

The water-based sideshow also produced some interesting moments, with Halifax CC making a sturdy contribution to the overall entertainment.

The men's K1 event featured Mark Gledhill who rattled down the course (that could have been his lungs) to take an excellent 3rd and gained promotion to Div 3 on his first outing of the season (ok first ever slalom outing!), now joining Brian, Roger and Adrian who also managed to exhaust themselves trying to generate some much-needed speed on the near still-water course, but still didn't really trouble the Div 3 leader board.

Nathan tried an interesting approach in his first C1 run, electing to miss a gate out completely and picking up a 50 second penalty. Recognising this as a clever tactic to fool the opposition, the rest of us were very supportive and didn't take the mickey at all. And the tactic clearly worked, as he slashed his time on his second run by sneakily including the previously missed gate!

This season, one-pole slalom gates are all the rage (don't ask). However, scanning the rule changes again, there doesn't appear to be any mention of Portage gates, so it wasn't entirely clear why Les and Sarah attempted to land their C2 at gate 5? Must be a C2 thing. However, a completely water-based second run helped them get 2nd place.

Certainly the extent of any success we had as a club reflects the strong team spirit and quality of coaching support. A great example came between runs, when the question "so, how do I cut my time on my second run?" received three pieces of advice so incisive they really should be featured on the UK Slalom website. All prospective slalom paddlers please take note:

1. "Go faster"

2. "Paddle forwards"

3. "Touch fewer gates"

Genius! With this level of team support, we are heading for another great slalom season! Now we just need to get our collective shouting skills up to scratch: - "Put Some Effort In!!".

Adrian Ward