Last week the Teva Extreme Outdoor Games 2010 took place in Valchiusella and Ivrea/ITA in order to find the new “Freeride Worldchampion”. The kayaking event – which was one among many others, including mountainbiking, bouldering, paragliding and running – consisted of a downriver race, sprint, slalom and boatercross. Around 65 paddler took part in this well-organized competition with pretty good water levels. In the end it was Mike Dawson from New Zealand who took home the title and the prize money. Germany’s slalom expert Fabian Doerfler got second and Dejan Kralj (SLO) third.
I was quite happy with my result, being 6th in the overall result. A couple of times off the line in the long downriver race and in the sprint didn’t allow anything better.
The Kiwis also won the team race, which was a seperate competition, followed by the Slovenians and the Czechs. Team Germany 2 with Philip Baues, Uwe Eichfelder and myself finished 5th.
The highlight of the event with most fun to watch was definitely the “King of the Falls” race, in which a difficult, short stretch (about 1 min.) with a 10m drop in the middle had to be run. Again, Mike Dawson dominated the field and won in front of Dejan Kralj and Honza Lasko from Czech.
Altogether we certainly had some great days of paddling and racing in Italy and are looking forward to being back next year!
I’ll post some photos of the action within the next days!