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Canadian Junior & Senior National Slalom Team Trials

photo by Kelly Vanderbeek

National slalom team trials for juniors, U23 and seniors were held in early May on the Kananaskis course in Alberta. Hunter is a cadet (under 15) so not eligible to make the junior team but we participated as a development experience.

photo by Ric Matkowski

There was a week of training ahead of the race weekend and we were grateful for the fabulous coaching from Brendan Curson of the Chilliwack Centre of Excellence in B.C.. Hunter was able to feel like he was part of a team and Brendan did a great job keeping it fun while focusing on skill progression.

photos by Ric Matkowski

Competition weekend was 2 full days of racing for Hunter. They set one course each day and you had two runs down it. For him that meant 4 runs per day as he competed in both K1 (single kayak) and C1 (single canoe). The course was a very technical course, with lots of offsets and it was geared towards the senior members.

photo by Ric Matkowski

Tim acted as a safety boater both days – not much action when you are talking about kids at the national level… At least he managed to find a sunbeam both days as it was COLD in the river valley the whole weekend.

The most exciting part of the weekend was Hunter’s progression. He went from missing gates and struggling during the first morning of races to having an almost clean run and finishing ahead of a few juniors for his last K1 run. In his words… “it just clicked”!

photo by Kelly Vanderbeek

The entire week was well worth the stop for us. He came away excited about training for slalom this summer and has seen what could be possible at nationals in August. Hanging out with amazing paddlers like Olympian David Ford can have that kind of inspiring effect!

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