The motto of this year: sleep during the day and paddle at night !!
A new successful edition of Charnay Beach Contest !! I think this freestyle kayak competition
will stayed in every one’s mind. This event by night saw the biggest frequenting of his short history.
With the presence of the best kayakers in france as Mathieu Dumoulin, Sebastien Devred and the nice coming of the two brand new world champion Nick Trouman and Emily Jackson, the show went on!
The last year, because the too high flood on the Saone river, I had to cancel the event. This year, the water levels were low but I was sure this wave would work for the competition, I just didn’t know when...
I checked the water level in the web site all the week and I can saw that the wave often worked the night and morning. So, I decided to make the first Charnay Beach Contest “By Night”.
The competitors arrived all the day long on friday. The wave was not working yet. Just the time for the organisers to confirm the registration and at 11 p.m. the water began to grow. The first paddlers could start training while the judges where preparing their eyes to obscurity and high scores. Around midnight, in the windy and cold atmosphere, fafa launched the first Free Kayak Tour (French kayak freestyle championship) 2010…
Each participant came in a free order and controlled mess at the start and jumped from the ramp directly to the wave for their first ride. All this until 4 am… after few hours sleeping it was on for another session of qualification from 10h until 12h because the water was running out to form the wave.
So, An afternoon of rest was well deserved for everyone. Some people played football, other guys learned slackline, the world champions learned to play bowls (in french : Pétanque ;-)) while the others were having a nap.
At 9 p.m. the music band took place for a friendly and funny concert in a awesome atmosphere!
Once the concert ended, the water level went back, the contest could resume with the semi-finals and finals.
We've got a superb performance throughout the weekend, big aerials and combos, and some new moves like the wavemonkey!
A big thanks at the principal partners Adidas and Sandiline, the Comité départemental de bourgogne, Kayak sesion and the local cheese Hervé poulet from Jura.
A big thanks as well at all the guys who helped me throughtout the week and the judges who
no cracked up face at the french mess ;-).
And a special thanks at Mr Dupond Vincent from Canada who motived me to redo the wooden sidewalls ;-) without whom we would not have such a nice holl with a small water level.
You can check some photos here
See you soon
Have fun
Stefun
