Fluid Kayaks Team

The first weekend of octobre, the extreme kayak world had one place to be – tyrols oetz valley, where the Adidas Sickline extreme kayak world championships took place for the third time. Over 100 top kayakers from twenty-two countries, among them Olympic Champions and World Champions in canoe slalom and winners of the latest extreme races of the season, had travelled to Austria to compete for world championship honours.
Some shots from the course



No question that Fluids european team members Valentin Grollemund (France) and Ralf Schaberg (Germany) didn´t hesitate for a minute to join this wicked event, accompagnied by team manager David Arnaud, a well-known face in the Adidas Sickline media squad. While the frenchies enjoyed a beautiful preparation week in the oetzvalley running all the various sections the infamous oetz river offers to the class V paddler, you could find Ralf doing his final training sessions on the picturesque but very quiet fuschl lake. He finally arrived wednesday catching up with some whitewater warmup-runs on thursday, and finally the squad was on fire and keen to race.
A sweet preparation Valentin is enjoying there...

But before being allowed to nail down the steep and technical Wellerbruecke section, the competitors had to pass the qualification. Only 48 of them would enter the quarterfinals. Without any problems, Valentin and Ralf passed this small barrier and focussed on the preparation for the quarterfinal.
Valentin speeding down the qualification

On saturday, the Oetz valley presented itself to the competitors and spectators in brilliant conditions - a perfect race waterlevel and the sun was just about to come up, when the first starters launched into the quarterfinals from the 6 meter rock drop throwing themselves down the course. With the new race format, the finals day started off with 2 rounds of head-to-head heats. Number 1 competed against number 48 of the qualification to go through to the 2nd final round, number 2 battled number 47 to progress and so forth. This was repeated with the top 24 contenders. This new knock out system was supposed to ensure that the midfielders have a fair chance to use good technique to get decent rankings, and it also ensured that the fast guys didn’t battle each other until the final round. As a result, the Superfinal line up of 15 was indeed the best of the best. In a field of this kind, no one could afford to make even the slightest mistake.

The truly unfortunate sufferer of this system was Fluid younggun Valentin Grollemund, who met a fit and famous quarterfinals-opponent, US-kayaker Andrew Holcomb, winner of the prestigious green narrows extreme race. Val, nailing an awesome time of 1.05,39 was kicked out by Andrew, who flew down the course with a time of 0.59,50, one of two riders who stayed under the magic mark of 1 minute on the course. Pour Valentin, next time kick some butts, dude!
Valentin and his strong opponent Andrew Holcomb

Ralf was luckier with the rivals and fought himself through the quarter- and semifinals straight into the superfinal, with having an amazing 1.01,88 time in the quarterfinal.
An extreme kajak world champs course demands for a crazy start - Ralf on the ramp

In the supertight and thrilling final on the legendary Wellerbruecke course it was eventually German slalom kayak olympic goldmedalist Alexander Grimm, who scored the fastest time and won the adidas sickline worlds, 68 hundreds of a second ahead of New Zealand’s Mike Dawson and Jakobus Stenglein from Germany on the 3rd place. Fluids representant Ralf finished 11th, with less than 5 seconds distance to the 1st place. In the overall result, Valentin still finished 26th, which means that both Fluid riders stayed in the first forth of all the competitors. Being equipped with standard production SOLOS, this should give you the right hint which boat to choose if you want to fly down the rapids in your next session.
Su-Su-Su-Superfinal - Ralf on the course

Enjoy your ride and meet us at next years´ Adidas Sickline extreme kayak world championships.

Event infos:
www.adidas-sickline.com

A full length video documentary of the finals:
http://freecaster.tv/kayak/1009273/adidas-sickline-2009-presented-by-tirol-replay