World Cup #1 Millau - Summary

Thursday was heats day. I had a training session in the morning followed by prelims in the afternoon heat. As the last paddler in the last heat, I had some time before competing and felt very positive. Overall my combined score from two rides was 296, and although I didn't quite reach my 200 point target in a single ride, I was happy. (Especially because I would have finished 9th in senior women and made it through to their semi-finals.)

After finishing 3rd in heats, I was to be the third in finals in Saturday. The junior women finalists had an early morning training session and then the final at 2pm. My training session was not great and I strugggled with the landing of my space godzillas but aimed to stay positive for my rides.

Unfortunately, in my rides in the finals I flushed and the score was not as high as I had of liked, scoring 136 in my best ride (only 6 points behind 2nd).

However, I was extremely happy to have placed 3rd in my first international competition and the atmosphere was insane!! We had an offical ICF ceremony for medals and even got champagne.

The whole experience was awesome.

After, we continued to watch more finals, including the womens and mens which were both incredible.

Then a huge thunder storm hit the Natural Games and put an end to all the excitement. Parts of the stage were blown over as buckets of rain fell from the sky - it was pure chaos.

Soggy tents and damp kit were piled into the car the following morning as we headed to Salt for World Cup #2. The journey was great and we even stopped at the famous bridge in Millau before driving across it.

The first 2014 World Cup was incredible and a great all round experience.

Photos courtesy of Alex Edwards, Tom Zach & Nuria Fontane