European Championships 2010 Training

With less than a week left before the Europeans training is in full swing out here in Austria. Over the last few week competitors have steadily been arriving in the town of Lienz to train. I arrived on Saturday with team mates Nicky Beeby, Gabby Bates and Adam Ramadan to begin training.

The features is a calm and tranquil looking but feisty and very tricky hole on the River Drove situated just upstream of the centre of town. It is set in a beautiful valley amid an array of snow capped mountains. The river is glacial and freezing cold but the weather is gorgeous and the setting and scenery unreal. We are staying 2 mins drive away from the feature at Camping Falken where we have set up base camp alongside the Irish. The van is proving a fantastic hub for the GB team at the wave and at the campsite providing a focal point for the British team.

We have been on the water three sessions a day for the last week trying to adapt and learn how to make the most of this very testing feature. Most hole moves go but scoring them is proving very hard (difficult to complete moves precisely to the description in the rules).

Yesterday the organisers released the competition running order, with over 170 competitors from 21 countries it looks like it is going to be a pretty impressive event. Official team training starts on Monday. I will be competing in the ladies freestyle heats on Wednesday, with the semi’s on Friday and the finals on Saturday. The squirt boating event will be running on Saturday, the venue is still to be confirmed.

I will keep you updated on all the news over the next week