OPS paddler Adam Chappell's Worlds Championship experience

This year was one of the biggest events in freestyle kayaking, the 2011 World Championships which took place about a 1 hour train ride from Munich, in Plattling, Germany. This was my second trip to Germany, since I attended the World Cup last year in Augsburg and Plattling. I placed second in the Junior Men’s division in Augsberg behind Dane Jackson, but the Plattling portion of the competition never took place though, due to heaving flooding that sweep through Germany as a result of nearly three straight weeks of rain.

I trained very hard leading up to this year’s event, spending every free minute I could manage on the water, at any hole I could find. I also spent a lot of time at Champlain because that feature is the most similar to Plattling that we have in Ottawa. I didn’t know if I would be able to go to the World Championships until early March, since I was the second alternate on Team Canada. However, luckily for me, 3 people dropped out, which meant that Joel Kowalski and I got to compete at Worlds. I didn’t want to miss my High School Graduation ceremony, so I ended up arriving in Plattling much later than everyone else on the Team Canada. It did not take long to see how much of a mess 300+ paddlers could make of a town. There were paddlers everywhere!

I was in town for less than 30 minutes before I got on the water. I had only 5 days to train before the competition began, so I planned to make them count. I attended team training which was only a one hour session each day, but I also paddled from around 9 p.m. each evening until 1 a.m. in the morning to try to learn the feature in the little time I had.

The first time I got on the wave my confidence dropped! I had a lot of trouble sticking even simple tricks, like air loops and could barely get any big tricks going. After a few sessions on the wave, Nick Troutman of Team Canada, and the World Champion at the time, had a few quick words with me.
The things he said boosted my confidence and the next time I went out on the wave, I started throwing my big tricks. I just focused on slowing everything down and throwing everything by the book, one thing at a time. Thank you Nick!

When competition time came around, I was super excited to get out on the wave and to get at it. Not that I nervous, I was just anxious to get my results and see how I could do against the world’s best paddlers. My first heat I was super excited! I have never been as happy as I was when I was paddling towards the wave with hundreds of people watching. I was confident in my training and I threw down my best ride of the competition. My second ride was not as good unfortunately. I got a bit over confident, I think, and cut some corners. I didn’t set my moves up the way I’d practiced and ended up in 23rd position, barely making the first cut. The cut off was at 25th place so, luckily, I got to move on to the quarter finals.

In the quarter finals, I managed to move up in the rankings from 23rd to 17th place, but that wasn’t enough to make the cut for the semi-finals. At first, I was disappointed with my placement, but I realized, I’m still only 18 years old and I plan to go back and do even better! So, I spent the next few days cheering on the Team Canada members that were still in the competition and partying at Volksfest.

All in all, it was a very, very good time. Great paddlers from all over the world in one place, it can't get much better than that. Most importantly, I had the opportunity to learn a lot and I know that next time will be different. I will be even more prepared.

I’ve been training hard almost every day since I got back from Germany. Hard enough, I hope, to take first place at Canada’s next team trials, and who knows, maybe first place at the next Worlds!