GB Team : 78 minutes

Yes 78 mins is officially how long our 2011 GB team training slots will last this year.

Competitiors gather at Plattling for the event (photo by Seth Asworth)

It is now only days until the start of the event and with so many paddlers now here it is time for the official team training slots to begin. This means that each day between 8am and 9pm the only time we can go out on the wave to practice is in our designated training slot. With Great Britain once again having the largest squad we have been given a 78 minute slot which works out to 3 minute per paddler. This doesn’t sound like an a lot but it works really well as it means we get some quality water time in which we can manage as a team to make sure we are all prepared as possible. The session times change each day and today we have a 3.51pm start time giving us a nice relaxing start to the day whereas tomorrow we will be up early for the first slot with a 8am start time. This year is the first time for a long time that squirt boating is taking place on exactly the same venue so an extra squirt boating training session has been allocated from 8pm-9pm each evening to help allow everyone uninterrupted training. Outside of this its open team training from 9pm – 7.45am so the wave is going to be super busy all through the night with everyone trying to get as much practice in as possible before the start of the event.

We are really lucky to have an amazing support team on hand at this year’s event and our coaching team of Dennis Newton, Sam Ward and Ben White will be on hand at each of the trainings and supporting us throughout the event to help us put together the best possible runs. We also have the support of Dave Newton team manager and Tim Ward GB Freestyle committee chairman and assistant team manager who will be helping make sure all the logistics are sorted and that we are all on time to our events. Sally Montgomery team physio will be completing our support team and fixing us all when she arrives on Saturday. And we have a team of judges who will be part of the ICF panel who will be arriving over the next few days. We also have a massive support team back home who have helped us all train and prepare for this event. Special thanks must go to Matt Chadder for organising this year’s team trainings and also Dianne Ward for sorting out the team kit which looks amazing. (photos will follow soon).

New 2011 Peak UK Kit

I have just received some awesome new kit from the team at Peak UK. You will be able to spot the GB Freestyle Peak UK team paddlers Joe Bradley, Jenny Chrimes and Claire O’Hara at this year’s by their funky new GB coloured and custom coloured speed skin top decks and racer pro pfd’s.

Designed by Pete Astles and with artwork by Jenny Chrimes these new super light weight and flexible cag decks as perfect for freestyle.

I tested out my new Speed Skin Top decks and racer pro pfd yesterday on a squirt boating session and it is awesome. It is so comfy and the graphics look amazing. Everyone has been commenting on it and saying how great it looks. I love the cut, shape, colours, design and the fact that it is so light weight. It almost feels like you are not wearing a cag as it is so fluid and does not affect your movement at all, how do I say... it’s unrestrictive???

Team Gb's Islay Crobsie and Claire O'Hara having fun during training

So with team training officially starting in just a few hours I am looking forward to putting together some competition rides and testing out my new freestyle kit.

Claireo