Friendly people in the kayaking community by Sophie Gilfillan

This past week I had the pleasure of representing team Ontario at Canadian nationals. During my time there I competed in down river classic and sprint, freestyle, extreme slalom and slalom. I started my first competition day strong finishing first for C1 cadet women and second for K1 cadet women in the downriver classic and sprint. My results from the first day put me in a good mindset coming into my third nationals. However I had a whole new day of freestyle and extreme slalom the following day. the next day I trained freestyle for four hours from 10:00 to 2:00. In this time i managed to learn a whole new trick called a loop. However this would not have been achieved without the help of literally everyone who was on the water, after I got beat down in the hole for a while a coach and a couple of athletes came up to me and gave me some very helpful tips. Everyone was encouraging me and supporting me while I struggled to learn my loop. After 4 hours of continus paddling it was time to compete, i was so nervous as it was my first freestyle competition after training for freestyle for one week with keeners. The format for the competition was called jams, what we had to do was go through rounds of elimination that progressively got harder as you went through. I made it to the second round and then didn’t make it past the second, however there were only 6 women competing so we all made it to the final which was a traditional ICF format, meaning that we had three forty five second rides taking the best score from the best ride. In the finals I had a rough first ride and was slightly discouraged, this all went away after talking with another competitor and getting tips on what tricks to do and where. My next two runs I was more confident in the hole and was satisfied with my paddling. I ended up winning my age category and tying for second overall. I was so happy with how I paddled I definitely could not hide my excitement. I know i paddled to my best ability thanks to the help of everyone giving me tips and strategies. It’s was so amazing seeing all the supportive athletes and coaches it’s made me feel very welcomed to the sport and excited to be a part of something so inclusive and friendly.