Whitewater Western National Team Trials

Written by Jeremy Rodgers
Created Date: Saturday, 16 April 2011 00:00

Load the dog, throw in a couple of kayaks, Heather grabs the peanut butter and jelly, and we're off to Glenwood Springs for the Western National Team Trials on the class 3 Shoshone section of the Colorado River. Western Junior Trials were held in conjunction with the Glenwood Whitewater Jubilee put on by race director Denny Adams and company. I still can't believe it but we showed up to see 45 juniors registered for western wildwater team trials hosted in Colorado this year...so much for rodeo and SUP taking over paddlesports!

Durango standout nordic skier Cully Brown set the gold standard with a smoking fast 14 minute classic course time for the K1 junior men. I'll be honest that I've watched this kid grow under the tutelage of American wildwater perennial powerhouses Mike Freeburn and Andy Corra and I was seriously watching over my shoulder for this junior to make me vomit to stay ahead of him and several other seniors that showed up in force. I hung on for the overall classic win and Cully won the K1 junior class just some 15 seconds behind me in 3rd place overall. Something tells me I'm going down next year if this 17 year old gets one more tip from these guys:) Coached by Olympian Scott Shipley, slalom standout from Lyons, Colorado Spencer Huff was hot on Cully's heels in 2nd place just seconds ahead of JP Griffith. Dawson School put Sarah Neimeyer on the women's K1 podium who went on Sunday to match the men's K1 sprint time which is very impressive.

I put on a 1.5 hour wildwater clinic for the juniors focusing on outfitting of a racing kayak, forward stroke technique, river reading skills, and pacing with a GPS based heart rate monitor. Special thanks to KEEN and Nuun for providing raffle prizes for all junior attendees.