Whitewater Alumni and Friends,

I attended the World Series Final at the ASCI course in McHenry, MD this past weekend. A puzzling affair in many ways. Which I suppose fits this rather odd race series. It's the project of a group of Slovakians who want to see slalom become a true professional sport, and in general it seems to be succeeding, with races this year in Australia, Europe, and the US, and a field of top boaters who are willing to travel.

At stake was $5000. in prize money, and in addition a new car, donated by Nissan. Last year's overall winner, four-time Olympic medalist Michael Martikan, took sick and couldn't make the trip. The word coming in was that the Skantar cousins, from Slovakia, had the inside track on the car, given to the overall high point winner of all classes. They had two wins already, tied in wins with the kayaker Peter Kauzer of Slovenia, but Kauzer had some serious competition not only from his countryman Janos Peterlin, but from the 2004 Olympic gold medalist Benoit Peschier, the Slovakian Martin Halcin, and from the almost home-town favorite, our own Scott Parsons. Whereas the Skantars had to compete only with thrown-together teams who had hardly ever paddled together. The word on the street is that the Skantars would probably have medaled, had they been allowed to compete in Beijing; the one boat per country rule may have hit them harder than anyone, as they couldn't muscle their way into the games past those pesky Hochschorners.

Indeed, the Skantars ended up winning by a full minute over second place. But Kauzer, who, in the opinion of some very knowledgeable experts--Scott Parsons among them--is the world's best slalom kayaker, put on an impressive display, winning his far-more competitive class by a full ten seconds over Parsons. Kauzer rides the same kind of rock-solid boat of those paddlers whom we used to call "the fast-floaters"--but he paddles hard as well. The combination is tough to beat. Three wins for both the Skantars and Kauzer, but the Skantars skipped a race in Europe, so Kauzer will drive away with the car. (Waiting for him in Europe.)

So here we had the world's best kayaker in our back yards--and very, very few came to watch. The US competitor turnout in K-1 and C-1 was good, considering the time of year, but very weak in K1-W (one US entry! Compared with nine Canadians!), and in C-2 (total class: Two Slovak entries, one French, one Canadian, one US). Happily, the one US K-1W, Zuzana Vanha, acquitted herself well, placing second to Canada's Jessica Groeneveld.

Undeterred, the World Series organizers plan to have not one but two races in the US next year. I dearly hope that we can attract more spectators to the sport that was the fourth most popular on TV worldwide--ahead of, for example, basketball and beach volleyball.

Complete race results are available here:
http://www.canoeworldseries.com/results

By the way, I am working on the Foundation bylaws; there's a group concocting a new online ranking system; a slalom website is in the planning stages; and eleven new kid-sized slalom boats are on order for club programs. Thanks to all who are pitching in.

Jamie