On Saturday the 6th August at 10am, 6 of us will be setting off on a 24 hour kayaking challenge on the river Dee in Llangollen to raise money for three brilliant charities. This is a brief article to share the key details of our kayaking challenge. I will write a longer piece post challenge but I wanted to be able to share the key information prior to Saturday for anyone who wanted to come along and watch us or support in any way. Please do have a read and ask questions if you have any!
Earlier this week I received a message from a man I had never met – we will call him ‘Mr Grumpy’. The message said ‘God this sport is easier for women 😂 and you just show it 😂 wow! How disappointing 😂’.
I had to read it twice before I could take it in. What was the message in response to you might ask? Absolutely nothing as far as I am aware. My most recent post had been about a kayaking festival I had attended the day before and how I had enjoyed competing in the ladies boater-x with my friends. But I struggle to see how me enjoying a white water weekend with friends could make this man so angry.
My initial response was to ignore it but after discussing it with a few friends, I decided actually I wanted to address this message and the deeper-rooted issues that underlie it.
Today I took a playboat down my local white water course, HPP, and enjoyed every minute of it. That may not sound like much but it is a huge deal to me. A year ago, for a combination of reasons, I completely lost my confidence. Specifically my confidence whilst paddling a playboat at HPP. It has taken me a year to find that confidence again.
I wanted to share my experience through this blog. Perhaps this article will help someone else who is feeling the same. I hope at the very least that if future me ever gets myself into this situation again – reading this article will help me!
Two weeks ago saw the opening ceremony for the 2022 freestyle kayaking world championships being held at Holme Pierrepont (HPP) in Nottingham, UK. Following the opening ceremony, there were 6 days of fierce competition, incredible performances and a whole lot of cheering!
As a local paddler to HPP, I was fortunate to be able to experience these world championships myself! I’ve never been to a kayaking competition on this scale before so was absolutely delighted to be able to attend a world championship in my home city of Nottingham! I am not an athlete or a coach instead I am just a very enthusiastic local who couldn’t believe she was lucky enough to experience a world championship right on her doorstep! This is my account.
Why do people take part in freestyle kayaking? Quite simply because it is fun. As the 2022 freestyle kayaking world championships are kicking off, there is a huge amount of excitement in the paddling world about freestyle kayaking right now. With such a strong focus on the championships and the talented athletes who are competing, it would be easy to forget that this is just one layer of the freestyle kayaking community. But freestyle kayaking is for everyone, no matter your ability. It is a sport for anyone who wants to have fun.
Prior to the start of the world championships, the International Canoe Federation (ICF) organise a development freestyle camp. This development camp is a fantastic 6-day camp aimed at developing aspiring freestyle paddlers. In this article, I want to share with you what happens during the development camp and why it is so important for the growth of freestyle kayaking in the wider community.
Recently I have completed a trilogy of articles around the upcoming freestyle kayaking world championships in Nottingham. I chose to write these articles to help raise awareness of what the freestyle kayaking worlds are, what the different categories are and the profiles of some of the junior GB athletes competing.
Following these articles, Alex McClure, who is an Irish squirt paddler, got in contact with me. She wanted to know whether I would be keen to do a piece about the Irish team. Of course, with the Irish team being such an awesome group of lovely people and phenomenal paddlers, I said yes! With Alex’s help, I’ve recruited a few of the Irish paddlers to let them tell you about their team!
With the freestyle kayaking world championships coming to Nottingham this June, I decided to write a trilogy of articles around freestyle. My first article was about the world championships themselves and all the details of how to get involved. My second article was explaining what the different disciplines are within freestyle – with some help from members of the senior GB freestyle team. But there is one group of individuals who I haven’t yet mentioned and they are the juniors. This article will provide a chance to get to know four members of the GB junior freestyle kayaking as they prepare to represent their country next month!
At the start of May, I was lucky enough to get to attend the first-ever She Paddles festival at Plas y Brenin in North Wales. It was one of the most enjoyable paddling events I have ever attended and certainly one I will be attending in the future. The weekend was incredibly well organised and the range of activities on offer was fantastic. 74 women attended as participants and the excitement and positivity throughout the weekend was infectious. I wanted to share my experience of the weekend in a bit more detail.
I recently wrote an article about the upcoming freestyle world championships to highlight what an exciting event that will soon be coming to Nottingham! Whilst this article was a great way to give people an overview of the event, I didn’t get the chance to go into detail about each of the different freestyle categories. With some help from a few well-known faces in kayaking, this article is going to do just that!
Anyone who has visited Holme Pierrepont (HPP) in Nottingham recently will be aware that there is an increasing presence of members of the freestyle community, both from the UK and from around the world. HPP is a world-class freestyle training ground and it is not unusual to find an abundance of playboaters here, especially during the warmer months. But you may be wondering why there is such a high level of activity and growing excitement at HPP right now. If you haven’t already heard, at the end of June, the 2022 ICF Canoe Freestyle World Championships are coming to Nottingham!!