Events

Published on septembre 6th, 2015 | by Kayak Session

Inside the 2015 Freestyle Worlds With EJ – Ep9, Finals All Classes

Read Eric « Ej » Jackson instant feedbacks as he reports ‘Live from the River bank’ at the 2015 Kayak Freestyle World Championships. Ej comments what he sees rides after rides. You will read below about the Men, Women, C1, K1 men & Women Junior finals…

Men’s Kayak Finals…. Nail Biter… and history being made…

Bren Orton has the the flushes on the finals… he goes big, but catches edges, and flushes on each ride, a big bummer, as he was doing so well up until now. Matt D, kills his first ride with 1087, and then Quim throws a 920 for second place…. Dane goes next and throws his entire ride for a 1560 to take a commanding lead! Nick flushes with a 600 for last place. On second rides Bren flushes again, while Matt Throws a huge 1420 point ride to take a commanding second place position followed by another solid ride by Quim at 950. Dane flushes keeping his first ride and Nick Struggles to get anything going staying in 5th after dominating the last two rounds.

On finals ride, Bren flushes again, Matthieu has a good ride, but not as good, Quim flushes early, Dane nails a 1650 point ride to further his lead, with only Nick left to go.

Nick starts throwing hard and early and going big… all of the way to the end, coming in just short of Mattieu, but in third place, knocking out the Spanish paddler, Quim.

A Jackson Kayak Sweep of the Men’s, Women’s, Junior Women’s, and C1 today, with Junior Men’s getting the win in a Gui Gui, and the bronze, and Jackson Kayak taking the silver.

Dane Jackson becomes the second paddler in history to win the Men’s Kayak world Championships two times, and also two times back to back, with his Dad (me… he he) being the other one. At 22 years old, Dane is likely to break my record of 4 wins, 2 silvers before we know it…

Dane Jackson the new 2015 Freestyle World Champ!©kayaksession.com/ P. Holcombe

Matt Dumoulin flying for silver. a well deserved spot on the podium for MATTYDEE ©kayaksession.com/ P. Holcombe

Nick Troutman showed throughout the week (winning both quarters and semi finals…) he deserved better than Bronze. but his final rides did not go as expected ©kayaksession.com/ P. Holcombe

Nick, Dane and Mathieu; those 3 never were further than top 5 throuhgout the competition…©kayaksession.com/ P. Holcombe

Women’s Finals – Emily Jackson is back on top – Hitomi from Japan wins her second silver, and Claire Ohara takes the bronze!

Claire’s first ride was awesome, setting the bar at 265 and in the lead, until Hitomi, and Emily Jackson upped her score. Early flushes, or low angle moves plagued Emily Wall, who won the semi-finals with big snappy aerial moves, putting her out of the medals…

Emily Jackson’s final ride was a 480, flushing on a huge Back Pan Am, but not before putting 200 points between her and the rest of the field. Hitomi gave it her all, throwing out of control and flushing, but still in second place into the final two ride by Emily Wall. Emily Wall caught and edge and flushed out early- giving Emily Jackson a victory ride.

The Emily nailed her routine on the front end, getting a huge back stab into a big right blunt, a huge left backstab and then a right air blunt into a Left Pan Am, but unfortunately flushing on her Back pan am, for a 600+ point ride.

Wow- exciting to the end- but it is the second Senior Women’s Title for Emily Jackson!

Results:

Emily Jackson- USA- 480
Hitomi Takaku- JApan- 280
Claire Ohara- England- 260
Kulkova Ekaterina- Russia – 176.67
Emily Ward – England – 135

Medal Count after Women’s: USA- 8 : 3 gold, 4 silvers, 1 Bronze, England- 4: 1 gold, 3 bronze, Canada- 2: 1 gold, 1 bronze, Japan-1:1 Silver

Emily Jackson is back! Taking here her second world title ©kayaksession.com/ P. Holcombe

Hitomi Takaku (Jap) winning her second straight silver medal ©kayaksession.com/ P. Holcombe

Claire O’hara going for bronze ©kayaksession.com/ P. Holcombe

some stoked ladies on the K1 women podium ©kayaksession.com/ P. Holcombe

C1 Men Finals – Ramping up the Hype and scores!

OK, so we had Seth Chapelle Set the bar high right out of the gate with a 585 point ride and everyone was chasing him from the beginning. Zach Zwanenberg who was second in semi-finals was in last going into the final ride hadn’t thrown down yet. Dane flushed twice and was sitting in 2nd after his 515 point ride. Jordan Poffenberger nailed a good ride but just shy of Dane’s and Seth’s to be in third with a 505. During final rides, Jordan flushed early, keeping him in 3rd. Seth was still sitting on his leading run, Sebastien who was in 4th flushed early also, but then Zach brought his A game, getting into 2nd place ahead of Dane, pushing Dane to 3rd and Jordan out of the medals. The final ride was Dane’s who had a 780 point Semi-Finals Ride, but 515 was his best today, so far… Dane started off strong hitting each move- Clean Blunt left, back stab right, then blunt right, then flashback right, and then going into the McNasty and nailing it, followed up with a Helix and a big smile, fist pump and knowing he secured his first gold medal of the competition. This is the second time Dane has won the C1 World Championships (2011, and silver in 2013 to Jordan). Two golds and one silver in three worlds in C1 is by far the best C1 Worlds Record going now… Very cool to see.

it was a Jackson Kayak Rock Star sweep… 🙂 Senior Women and then Senior Men to go!

Results:

Dane Jackson- USA- 860
Seth Chapelle- USA- 595
Zach Zwaneberg- Canada- 545
Jordan Poffenberger- USA- 505
Sebastien Devred- France- 498

Current Medal Count is now: USA- 7 : 2 gold, 4 silvers, 1 Bronze, England- 3: 1 gold, 2 bronze, Canada- 2: 1 gold, 1 bronze

The mens C1 top 3 finishers. Zach Zwaneberg (3rd), Dane jackson 1st, Seth Chapelle (2nd) ©kayaksession.com / P. Holcombe

Zach Zwaneberg (Canada) ends up with a bronze medal around his neck ©kayaksession.com/ P. Holcombe

Dane Jackson on his way to take his first gold medal of the day – minutes before he won the men kayak final, he takes the C1 final. ©kayaksession.com/ P. holcombe

Seth Chapelle (Usa), throwing hard to end up in second place ©kayaksession.com / P. Holcombe

Junior Men’s Finals– Triple British Invasion or single French and American Offensive… What will prevail in this stacked Junior Men’s finals?

Alec Vorhees is the man to beat, but the three British paddlers Hugo Scott, Charlie Brackpole, and Hugo Anthony are getting better and bolder in each round. Frenchmen, Fabien Lanao, is no longer playing it conservative and seems to have the skills needed for the win if he nails his ride and Alec doesn’t. Alec consistently throws over 1,000 point rides in practice, but has not come close in the competition yet. Will he throw down in 15 minutes when we get started? Who Knows, but these juniors will not be holding back!

The juniors just finished!! Fabien from France threw the leading ride for first rounds, but Hugo Anthony came back on second rides with a 767 point ride to dominate after second rides. Two of the Brits came in under 100 points on first rides, and Alec Vorhees also flushed early- It was drama as clearly you could not predict what was going to happen. Alec flushed off after a 4th place ride and was clearly in pain with a hurt shoulder that he did on the previous run. Things were not looking good for him, while the British started ramping up and were in top 3 and super fired up and paddling confidently. Fabien came back with a big second run, nailing a blunt/mcnasty combo to get into the third place position, which he was super fired up on, and the rest of the British rides were lower than their previous ones, setting the stage for the final ride by Alec Vorhees. Alec came out and threw a great airscrew to start, and then Airblunts both ways, clean back blunt, Clean blunt, and finished with two helix attempts and one was not aerial and finally on the buzzer he threw a backblunt, but it was in the same direction as his other one. So close to the winning ride but his first helix was just not aerial. Still an amazing high 600’s and a silver medal splitting up the Brits and giving the Brits a Gold and Bronze and a Silver for the USA.

Hugo Anthony- England- 782
Alec Vorhees- USA- 676
Hugo Scott- England- 590
Fabien Lanao- France- 557
Charlie Brackpoole- England- 486

Current Medal Count: USA– 5 : 1 gold, 3 silvers, 1 Bronze, England- 3: 1 gold, 2 bronze, Canada- 1: 1 gold

Alec Vookhees (Usa) ©kayaksession.com / P. Holcombe

Hugo Scott (GBR) taking the bronze medal in those Junior Men finals ©kayaksession.com / P. Holcombe

Hugo Anthony from England, the new Junior Men World Champion! ©kayaksession.com/ P. Holcombe

Junior Men Podium. 1 Hugo Anthony- England, 2nd Alec Vorhees- USA, 3rd Hugo Scott-©kayaksession.com / P. Holcombe

Junior Women’s Finals – The Sage Donnelly Legacy – will it begin here?

The junior women are about to compete for the medals in the 2015 World Freestyle Kayak Championships. Sage Donnelly won the Prelims and Semi-finals with massive scores, outpacing the competition by double their scores. However, the finals is a new game and until it happens, there is no way to know for sure if Sage can bring her A Game or not. Darby McAdams, from the USA, and Sofie from England are gunning for the Gold as well…. AND… it is over!

Darby McAdams’ first ride of 205 set the bar for the ladies- which is a HUGE junior ladies score. Darby throwing air blunts, back blunts, and working for Pan Ams, but not quite vertical enough. The ladies were on their toes after seeing this amazing ride by the young USA paddler from Montana. The young Spanish ladies- two of them in the finals (awesome!), didn’t score on first rides, but both of them scored on second rides, but only 20 points for the top one.

Sage Donnelly who KILLED it out there with a 588 point first ride, throwing two Helixes, and front and back blunts to get the highest score in either junior or senior women’s so far in the this competition! Sage walked away with the Gold and on her victory lap, she threw a Blunt/McNasty combo to show off her skills! After her first ride, the gold was secured as no other paddler in that heat could bring that kind of “heat” to the Garburator wave. Darby could score another 200 points or so on top of her 205, but a 588 was not in her reach at this time. With her raw talent and motivation, I expect that that will change quickly, however!

Sofie McPeak from England has a sweet Back Pan Am and Air Blunts and Back Blunts, BUT, she was unable to throw them in the competition, but she still did get enough points for third place at 70 points.

Results Junior Women

Sage Donnelly- USA 588
Darby McAdams- USA- 205
Sofie McPeak- England- 70
Mireia Serras Segarra – Spain- 20
Kira Carreto Tejedo- 7

Sage Donnelly (Usa) dominated the competition the entire week. And is now the new Junior World Freestyle champion ©kayaksession;com / P. Holcombe

OC1 Men Finals

OC1 kicks off at 9am and… The OC1 class starts off on a cool, dewy, morning, as the stands begin to fill up. The “Loser Party” happened last night as most of the athletes have been knocked out of the competition by now and the need for release is high. Red Eyed paddlers, with little sleep, and hung-over, are still motivated to see everything, and while late for OC1, are showing up and the stands are starting to reach capacity.

The German paddler Jonas started off an got a 65 point ride, putting points on the board with a blunt, roundhouses and spins. Brad Macmillan, from the USA got a zero, followed by Andy Hill from Canada, who has a competitive advantage using a 2014 RockStar OC1 that he molded off of his C1 and built up the deck to make it legal. He was able to do more moves as it holds less water and is shorter, but his practice and execution of the moves was what gave him the 280 point ride to take first place, starting off with a McNasty.. Jordan, going for broke, threw a McNasty on his first and second ride, but flipped and flushed twice.

Brad went out on second rides and threw a sweet clean blunt for 70 points, while Dane threw the same and had 70 points going into third rides.

On final Rides, Dane threw front and back blunts, spins and roundhouses for 190 points, without any big moves (like the McNasty)… Brad didn’t improve on his 70 points, while Jordan threw more standard, lower scoring moves, going for blunt moves, but wasn’t quite vertical enough to score them, getting roundhouses for 68 points, 3 points shy of the bronze. Jonas moved from first to 5th by the end, sticking with his first ride of 65 points.

The World Championships Finals: