World Sprints

Back home from the World Sprints. Awesome week, awesome experience. Some thoughts....

1. Fun hanging with Hawaii. Not individual clubs, but Hawaii. We all came together as ohana.
2. Venue was good, but organization was awful. Having been to New Zealand, our Northern Cali gang had a hard act to follow and sure enough, they couldn't do it. Races itself was good, fairly organized, but everything else left a bit to be desired. From the car head lights that was used for the Culture night, to the bull horns that was used for the awards. Aloha to the Northern Cali guys for at least putting on the event. I asked my Southern Cali paddling friend why didn't they do it in San Diego or LA area and he said NO WAY! So, maika'i to the Northern Cali guys...you did it.
3. Hawaii Women 55's were the bomb! Swept all three events...500, 1000, and V12...convincingly. In their 1000 final they were more than 10 seconds in front of second place NZ.
4. Furious shirt trading going on on the last day. Our Hawaii shirts were hot items...everyone from around the world was popping into the Hawaii tent asking to trade. No way...I kept mine.
5. Coolest moment of the entire week.....our Hawaii Adaptive V12 team crushing everyone, then coming back to the Hawaii tent to a standing ovation. Everyone clapping and kissing/shaking hands/high fives all around. Chicken Skin moment.
6. Having all the finals on one day, on Saturday. Some teams had 6 finals to paddle in. Many paddled in 5 finals...couple of them back to back. Then, if you were a V1 paddler that made the final, then you had that final to deal with as well as the team finals. In NZ, they spread the finals over 3 days so that last day was not so crazy.
7. Because of all the finals on the last day, the awards ceremony....with the bull horms, lasted for hours!!
8. Tahiti, Tahiti, Tahiti.....awesome display of youth paddling. Their youth paddling program for the boys is second to none. On the girls side, the Kiwi girls more than held their own against the tahitians. Open Men, they were just as dominant, but it would have been fun to see the Lanikai boys line up against them in the open and Masters races. Shoot, I would pay to see that one.

In all, was a great experience. Everyone out there should make an effort to try to qualify for, then attend a World Sprints event, it is such an awesome experience.

Luana...job well done. See you guys in New Caledonia in two years.....gotta qualify first. Practice starts today.

Jaws Out......

Submitted by RatchetJaws on Mon, 08/11/2008 - 10:12am