Vacances de la toussaint

Du 24 octobre au 1er novembre

Une semaine de "vacances":

- Sélectif régional à Neuville sur Ain (2 courses une le samedi l'autre le dimanche en K1, C1 et C2)

- Stage à St Pierre avec les jeunes du club (entrainements de slalom et encadrement des séances des jeunes, mais aussi une super session de freestyle avec Martina et une journée de slalom avec Olivia)

- Sélectif régional à Pau (Une très mauvaise course pour moi à part notre 1ère manche de C2)

One Week on "holiday":

- Regional slalom race in Neuville sur Ain (2 races one on Saturday the other on sunday doing K1, C1 and C2 with Anthony)

- Club training camp in St Pierre with the young Kids (Training in slalom, coaching the small kids but I also did a great freestyle session with Martina and a day slaloming with Olivia)

- Regional race in Pau (It was a very bad race for me apart for our 1st C2 run)

Start of Neuville

Anthony and I before our C2 race. (photo: Micha Daille)

St Pierre coaching the 10 to 12 YO kids

paddling with the 7 to 9 YO kids

Stage de rentrée du "Pôle France"

12, 13, 14 octobre

3 dures journées mais heureusement, je les ai passées avec ma partenaire d'entrainement et amie Laure Udari ce qui a rendu cet horrible stage amusant.

Le premier jour nous avons fait 106 km de vélo sur route avec nos VTT avec environ 3000m de dénivelé positif. je n'avais jamais vraiment fait du vélo avant et maintenant je comprends pourquoi ! Avec Laure on a passé près de 10h sur nos vélo mais nous n'avons pas abandonné. On a tellement rigolé pendant ces longues heures, prises de folie, racontant des blagues et des histoires plus stupides les unes que les autres...Je pense que cela restera malgré tout un bon souvenir. En plus beaucoup de paris sur nous ont été perdus. Tant mieux.

Le deuxième jour nous avons fait une randonnée de 2000 mètres de dénivelé positif, on était encore fatiguées de la veille mais nous avons continué à marcher dans les pierriers où en plus de la fatigue nos genoux nous faisaient mal. On a marché pendant 8h30 mais nous sommes allées au sommet.

Le troisième jours nous avons fait 2h de VTT le matin et 1h30 de course d'orientation l'après midi. C'était une journée au centre aéré comparé aux jours précédents. Enfin avec Laure on a quand même terminée 2ème, garçons et filles confondus, de la course d'orientation, pas mal.

3 hard days but luckily I spent it all with my training mate and friend Laure Udari which made this awful trip really fun.

On the first day we biked 106km on road with mountain bikes and around 3OOOm of positive difference in altitude. I struggled, I hadn't ever done much bicycle before and I now understand why ! With Laure we spent around 10 hours on our bikes but we didn't give up. We've been laughing so much during these long hours, turning crazy, telling jokes and stupid stories...I think it's still gonna stay in my mind as a good memory. Lot's of the bets running on us got lost. good.

On the second day we went hiking, we were still tired but we kept walking up and down from 1000m in altitude to 3000m in crappy tracks full of rocks where on top of our tiredness our knees were hurting. We spent 8h30 walking but we went to the top.

On the third day we did mountain biking for 2hours in the morning and we did a 1h30 running of orientation the afternoon. It was such an easy day compared to the 2 others. Still Laure and I placed 2nd of the running of orientation boys and girls overall, not bad.

Life in Toulouse

Désolé de ne pas avoir donné de nouvelles. Mais comme on dit "pas de nouvelles, bonnes nouvelles".

Ces deux derniers mois, ma vie a complètement changée. J'ai quitté mes montagnes, mon petit village pour venir m'installer et faire mes études à Toulouse. Je suis plus ou moins constamment en train de courir entre l'entrainement et les cours. C'est parfois difficile mais je m'accroche.

Sorry for not giving any news. No news often means good news.

Last 2 month my life has completely changed. I left my mountains, my small village... and I moved in Toulouse for my studies. I'm pretty much always in a rush between school and training. Sometimes it's very hard but I hang on.

Supporting Norway in the 2009 slalom worlds !

september 11,12, 13th

It was nice to go in Seu to watch the best slalom paddlers, but the nicest thing for me out there was to give a little help to the Norwegian federation. Norway was represented by two K1W: Mariann Seather and Valerie Bertrand. Both women have a lot's of skills in white water. I think Mariann is the best extrem women paddler ever and a top class freestyle paddler. Valérie has been a squirtboat world champion and she's also a good river paddler and a rafting team captain. For their first slalom race, they did awesome and I was very proud to kinda coach them. Mariann placed 51st and Valerie got a 50 sec. penalty. But the performance of these two girls is not in their ranking, it's all in the way they've paddled. They're able to take all the gates of a world championships qualifications course without being able to do proper pivot turns. They didn't realized how great they were because they can only see that they're not as good as they use to be in their plastic boat !
You're better watch out Norwegian paddlers in a few years ! I think that very good creek paddlers can rip it up in a 3m50 long slalom boat.

Congratulation as well to all the medalist especially to Tony and Boris for France, Maialen from Spain who had such good runs during all the competition, and Jasmin Schoenberg (GER) for a super fast and clean final run. Peter Kauzer who killed it all and made who my bets (thanks =) ...) Congratulation as well to the junior womens who were competing at senior worlds: Eva (SLO), Victoria (AUT), Jessica (AUS) , to all the C1 Women.

Special thought to Mike Dawson (NZL) who did his best after being very ill (at the beginning the doctor diagnostied the swine flew). I hope he'll be in a better shape for the sickline addidas world championships in Austria. Good luck to Mike, Louise and all the other Kiwi. Slalom paddlers can also be very good creek river runners.

World Freestyle Championships-Thun (Switzerland)

from the 1st to the 6th of September

Thun was better then what we've been expecting, the organisation was great; Thanks and Congratulations to Simon Hirter. The river side was always crowdy and a lot's of non-paddler spectators were there. The wave wasn't big but it was pretty hard and I really enjoyed it. It was very nice to do some freestyle after a whole summer of slalom, I was really missing my plastic boats. As we were about 20 junior Women we had only 3 days competing wich would let us some a lot's of free time dururing the week. It gave me the oportunity to do some early morning trainning sessions ( 4 AM ! ) and to go creeking on the Weisse Latchine (Special thanks to Julian who has been the organizer/leader of this afternoon creeking).

Results:

C1:
David Bainbridge (GBR) - 465,00 pts
Guillaume La rue (CAN) - 381,66 pts
Alexandre Besseau (FRA) - 376,66 pts

K1M:
Nick Troutman (CAN) - 1510,00 pts
Eric Jackson (USA) - 958,33 pts
Clay Right (USA) - 790,00 pts
Jules Gallais (FRA) - 466,66 pts
Joel Kowalski (CAN) - 410 pts

K1W:
Emillie Jackson (USA) - 553,33 pts
Ruth Gordon (CAN) - 348,33 pts
Tanya Faux (AUS) - 340,00 pts
Mariann Seather (NOR) - 263,33 pts
Martina Wegman (NED) - 160,00 pts

K1JM:
Jason Craig (USA) - 873,33 pts
Dane Jackson (USA) - 670,00 pts
Sebastien Devred (FRA) - 640,00 pts

K1JW:
Nouria Newman (FRA) - 400,00 pts
Sandrina Hornhardt (GER) - 50,00 pts
Leoni Häberling (SUI) - 33,33 pts

In Thun, I ended well my last season competing as a junior. I Became the new junior women Freestyle world champion.


Photos Chritof Langer, Pascale Abou and Rob Newman

World ranking races

From 3rd to 24th of August

Three weeks, three races, three country-Freedom

It all started thanks to François (Thomas’s father) who gave us his van to go on the World ranking races. These Three weeks were sweet and would also thanks my super travel mates: the guys from Pontarlier-Pierre Bourliaud, Thomas Rosset, Ben Travostino, Loïc Jeanningros; Jim Wade (USA) and Amandine.

#1: Leipzig (Germany).

The place doesn’t look good, there’re lots of factories which make it ugly but there’s also a lake and a beach next to the course which look pretty good. The slalom course is really good, fun but hard. Our training sessions were during one hour but after 20 minutes I was already burnt out. Out of our kayak, we were spending our days swimming, cooking, playing card to know who will have to deal with the dishes; chill out on the beach at night time….The races went good for me. We’ve placed 3^rd at 4cat team race behind France’s team one and the Czech team who won. It was a lot of fun. I made the final and finished 8^th K1W, it was weird but cool to race at night. Loïc saved the honour of France; we lost the 4cat team race placing 2^nd and 3^rd and we didn’t make any podium in the individual races but Loïc’s plastic duck won the duck race!

#2 Bratislava (Slovakia)

It was my first times paddling on Bratislava’s course, as course is as good as what I’ve been told, I was just thinking that the fall was bigger. Even if we were camping next to the course, we were also eating to the restaurant everyday and we’ve been used not to cook or do the dishes very fast. The races didn’t go very well; we’ve almost missed the start of the 4cat team, the qualifications went good but I missed gate 16 on my semifinal run and so I placed 18^th. But it was all good because Pierre Bourliaud did great and placed 4^th.

#3 : Tacen (Slovenia)

We couldn’t have found a better unofficial campsite: we were lucky to had lot’s of shade, a nice landscape on the river border and we could use the kanu club shower. It was also a great place to go swimming, and it was a few bridge where could jump from, I crashed trying a back flip from a 7 meter bridge :S . The races went super good, I placed 3^rd of the Slovenian Open. I was very happy to do well as my club and my coach stoped in Tacen to support me on their way to the Socca River.

I travelled back home with Ciaran, the road was longer then we expected because we met the Kiwis in Italy, their magis bus had blown its engine. And so we had lots of time to do scooter rides and enjoy the motorway service area’s landscape.

Si l’aventure a pu commencer c’est grâce à François Rosset qui nous à prêté son minibus pour aller sur les World ranking races. Ces trois semaines étaient géniales et j’aimerais remercier mes compagnons de route : les gars de Pontarlier-Pierre Bourliaud, Thomas Rosset, Ben Travostino, Loïc Jeanningros; Jim Wade (USA) et Amandine.

#1 : Leipzig (Allemagne).

A première vue, l’endroit ne vaut pas le détour : un paysage morbide composé d’une grue géante, de centrales nucléaires et d’industries en tous genres dont les cheminées dégagent d’épaisses fumées. Et pourtant, à coté du bassin, le lac et la plage sont plutôt conviviaux. Quant au bassin il est amusant et très difficile à la fois. Les créneaux d’entrainement duraient une heure mais au bout de 20 minutes j’étais souvent déjà très fatiguée. En dehors du bateau, nos journées se résumaient aux baignades, à la cuisine, aux jeux de cartes pour savoir lequel d’entre nous devrait faire la vaisselle, aux supermarchés, aux veillées le soir sur la plage…. Les courses se sont bien passées pour moi. On a fait 3^ème de la 4cat team derrière l’autre équipe française et l’équipe Tchèque. C’était très amusant. En individuel, suis passée en finale où j’ai terminé 8^ème, c’était bizarre mais génial de courir en nocturne. Heureusement Loïc a sauvé l’honneur français : nous n’avons pas gagné la 4cat team en terminant 2 et 3^ème, nous n’avons pas non plus fait de podium en individuel mais le canard en plastique de Loïc a gagné la course de canards !

#2 : Bratislava (Slovaquie)

C’était la première fois que je naviguais à Bratislava, le bassin est aussi bien que ce que l’on m’avait raconté même si j’imaginais la chute un peu plus grosse. Le fait de camper à coté du bassin ne nous empêchait pas de manger tous les jours au restaurant et nous nous sommes vite habitués à ne plus faire ni à manger, ni la vaisselle. Les courses ne se sont pas bien déroulées, on a faillit rater le départ de la 4cat team, les qualifs se sont bien passées Mais je me prends un 50 en finale, je termine donc à la 18^ème place. A noter la belle 4^ème place de Pierre Bourliaud.

#3 : Tacen (Slovénie)

Niveau camping sauvage, on n’aurait difficilement put trouver mieux : Terrain ombragé, vue sur la rivière et sanitaires du club de kayak à notre disposition. Et un super spot de baignade ont pouvait sauter de plusieurs ponts, d'ailleur je me suis ratée en tentant un salto arrière d'un pont de 7 mètres, les plats ça pique ! Les courses se sont super bien passées, je termine 3^ème du Slovenian Open. Je suis super contente d’autant plus que mon club de kayak était venu me supporter.

Le retour à la maison avec Ciaran a été plutôt mouvementé, nous avons retrouvé sur la route les Kiwi dont le van a cassé. Du coup on est rentré plus tard que prévu mais au moins on a pu profiter des tours de trottinette sur l’air d’autoroute en Italie et du magnifique paysage de celle-ci.

Slovenian Open

22-23 août 2009

Qualification run


Semi-final run


Final run

Slovak Open

11-12 août

Qualification run


Semi-final run

German Open

7 & 8 august

Qualification Run



Semifinal run




Final Run

New Slalom Boat and Fun with the kayak club

31 juillet et 1er août 2009

First time paddling with my SALSA (Caiman)

J'ai passé quelques jours à la maison après les Europes, juste le temps de caler mon nouveau bateau et de partir l'essayer à Sault Brénnaz.

I spent a few days Home after europeans, where I've been fiting my new boat and paddling with it at Sault Brénnaz.

Having Fun with the La Plagne Eaux vives 's young paddlers