Three weeks ago myself and Pringle travelled out to the site of the 2012 Freestyle European Championships in Austria.
We arrived in the small but beautifully located town of Lienz, unfortunately whilst other regions in Austria had huge dumps of snow, it had missed Lienz and so rather than the deep powerful and flushy hole that normally resides here, we were left with a shallow, powerful and highly retentive hole.
We made the most of it for a few days, repeatedly nailing rocks with our carbon boats and playing in the foam pile behind the hole but it wasn’t much fun and not really a good testing ground for the carbon Jed Prototype.
Being located high up in the mountains, Lienz is subject to highly changeable weather … and luckily for us a few days after our arrival the sunshine was replaced with rain, the levels rose rapidly whilst we sheltered in pringles van and within a day the hole was back to it’s full glory.
We had some great sessions in the lead up to the competition and were normally paddling three times a day.
Levels dropped down by the time the start of the event arrived but luckily the organisers had managed to guarantee a medium flow for the hole,
The first day of the competition went exceptionally well, in prelims the riding format is – two rides count and both are added together, the idea of having no throw away rides always makes me nervous, there was some exceptional paddling form all the nations. The results from the first day can be seen below.
The second day allowed the senior men and junior ladies to take to the water. The junior ladies was typically closely fought and some impressive rides were thrown down by the girls in this powerful hole. Jen Mcgally and Kim Aldred from Gbr both made it through to the next round of the competition and Nuria fontanne messo from spain managed to put some fear in the junior boys with some huge space godzillas.
During the mens prelims tensions are always high, with both rides counting there is little room for error, a mistake here will cost you dearly and could potentially stop you from advancing to the next round.
Palms James Bebbington managed to lay down some great rides and secure his place in the next round along with the other members of the Gbr senior team, James Weight, Andy Brinkley and Alan Ward – unfortunately Gav Barker, who has been battling an injury for the past few days did not quite make the cut.
Semi finals took place on day three, again we saw some incredible paddling and more success from the Gbr team, with 3 of the junior boys heading through to the finals and Pringle along with James Weight advancing into the final in the senior mens.
Finals arrived and tensions were once again high everyone in the final 5 paddlers was more than capable of winning,
I didn’t paddle how I wanted to or how I previously had done in the other rounds and  it was an incredibly close fought battle for the title with my buddy James Benns, we’ve been competing against each other in smaller competitions for years and it was nice to paddle with him and my other team mate Sam Stephenson in the final. In the end i finished first just in front of James by 1.6 points ! and Sam Stephenson just a few points behind us finished in 3rd place. Also well done to Brandon Hepburn who paddled really well but unfortunately just missed the final.
The senior mens final was truly impressive to watch, Spains own Quim fontanne meso laid it down and had the rid of his life in the final scoring well over 1000 points in a really trciky feature, the remaining men had a hard act to follow but they all stepped up and  put up some high scores. The results from the mens final was Quim, Sebastian Devred, James Bebbington, James Weight, Peter Csonka.
The senior womens was again won by Marlene from france, who was throwing the biggest loops of the entire competiton, she was closely followed by Nina Csonkova and Maria Lindgren.
Nuria Fonnatnne Meso became the junior girl european champion closely followed by  Lisa Hasselwander and Jana Gross of Germany.
In c1Â Lukas Cervinka from Czech succsefully defended his title and won the gold medal, with Philip Hitzigrath of Germany in Silver and Aitor Goikoetxea of Spain in Bronze.
It was an incredible trip, I had a great time and am looking forward to competing more and learning how to show my best.
Huge thank you to all the guys that helped me out !
See you on the water,
Bren
(Pictures by Pringle, Katya and Dennis Newton)
