EuroCup
2005
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From
June until August three cool events took place in three different
countries to form the EuroCup. It was a hot European Freestyle
summer and again Worldchampion Jutta Kaiser has made the EuroCup-title.
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Eurocup '05/1: Bremgarten: "Wave & Wheels"
This year’s series started with the “Wave and
Wheels” in Bremgarten/Switzerland. Simon Hirter –
also known as ‘tall Simon’ – put together
a huge sports event in his hometown.
The
little town of Bremgarten was a great background for the skating,
surfing and kayaking that went on non-stop for about 4 days.
Good shows, tense competitions and great live music made sure
that everybody had the feeling to be at the right place at
the right time. You definitely did not want to miss a second
of this big Swiss party!
The kayak event has been hold in the upper Bremgarten-wave,
located right in the centre of the town, which is a world-class
playspot. A
fast, breaking wave, that allows all kind of wave-moves as
well as most of the hole-tricks. |
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No
wonder that the entry-list was full of “big names”
of the freestyle circus: Billy Harris, Bryan Kirk, Tanya
Shuman, Devon Parker and others made their way from
Northern America to Europe and also Paddlers from Africa
enjoyed the competition. Of course many, many of the
top European kayakers such as Ed Smith, Tobias Bersch,
Matt Cooke, David Arnaud, Fiona Jarvie, Lynsey Evans
and Lianne Wagtho (just to name a few) came and showed
great stuff and put themselves in a good position for
the overall EuroCup-ranking. In the finals on Saturday
evening the german team came out very strong: Lukas
Kalkbrenner (2nd at the worlds in Australia) won the
Junior Men class and Nico Langner and Jutta Kaiser took
the gold medals in the senior classes. |
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Eurocup
'05/2: Nottingham
Next place to go to was Nottingham/Great Britain. Organiser
Pete Astles had to deal with a very long entry list –
if it was for the new build playspot in the looping pool,
or for the well-known British parties cannot be answered.
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the kayakers on the water rocked the place. And also
the many spectators on the banks were having loads of
fun, entertained by the commentating of Matt Cooke who
had heaps of cool Sweet-Hoodies, Shirts and other gifts
to give to the crowd. However, things have not been
handed over for nothing: |
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You
had to put some effort in it and so for example the ultimate
super comfortable Therma-Rest mattress went to the girl, who
has been the first lying on this mattress without any clothes!
Lowri Davies was the bravest and fastest one among the girls
and won this cool price. Congrats to her!
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In
addition, congratulations had to go also to Ed Smith,
who showed that he is the upcoming superstar in Europe.
He took the first place in Nottingham and therefore
the pole position in the EuroCup-Ranking.
In the women class WaveSport teamriders Lenka Novotna
and Jutta Kaiser dominated the scene: the EZG performed
great in the spot and so gold and silver went to that
Ladies. |
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Eurocup
'05/3: Prague
The final showdown took place in Prague/Czech Republic in
August. Like the organisers in GB, also the Czech prepared
well for the competition and have been able to improve the
playspot in the artificial course especially for that event.
However, the spot was a very tricky one and a good number
of kayakers found themselves washed down the little drop after
the hole with no chance to make it back up for that run. The
ones who could spend more time in the hole were fired up by
the great the Czech atmosphere. Spectator ranks have always
been filled up with enthusiastic fans: flags and whistles
everywhere…
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After good bands and loads of cheep beer on Friday and Saturday
evening Sunday was finals day. Who would make it today and
therefore take the EuroCup crown? |
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Sport teamrider Petr Csonka put together an incredible
show in his ZG 48: mastering to do McNasty and Phoenics
Monkeys on both sides and he absolutely deserved to
win the event. For the whole EuroCup a 4th place in
Prague was enough for Ed Smith and he went home as the
new EuroCup Champion, followed by Dutch Casper van Kalmthout
and the last year’s winner Tobias Bersch from
Germany. |
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In
the ladies class world champion Jutta Kaiser won the EuroCup
once again, with Wave Sport teamrider Lenka Novotny on 2nd
place and Lianne Wagtho on rank 3.
The junior class came to an end with a local hero: Jan Spindler
from Czech Republic has been very consistent over all three
events and celebrated his success as Junior Men EuroCup Champion! |
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After the price giving ceremony the whole lot of European
kayakers went into the city of Prague to mix up with the thousands
of other tourists, who come to see the historical town with
its long tradition. If the kayakers got an idea about the
cultural highlights or if again it was more for the excellent
food and beer is still something to be figured out….
Text: Jutta Kaiser (Sept.'05)
Images: Unknown, Jutta-Kaiser-Archives
Many thanks to Jutta and the unknown photographers!
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Results
(PDF-files):
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Many thanks to http://cnawr.cz
who have published the results on their page first!
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