This last weekend was an absolute blast. I traveled to Colorado to compete at the 2007 FIBArk festival and met up with several fellow Anomaly Paddlers, old friends from school, and other good friends.
After arriving on Tuesday and paddling for a few days, the festival kicked off on Thursday night. With prelims on Friday, we all focused on our routines, nailing the tricks we knew and getting used to the hole. In prelims, myself, Zack Mitchell, and Michael “LP” Palmer advanced to the Junior Men’s semi-finals, Morgan Tidd qualified to compete in finals for Women’s Expert/Pro and Alex Mohn blew us all away with a 120 point ride to qualify for top ten in the Men’s Pro class (quite an accomplishment considering it is his first year of pro competition and he was the youngest pro competitor).
Saturday started off with great weather and everyone looked forward to the events of the main day of the festival, including the Finals Pro Freestyle Competition. The major attraction of the day of course, was the exciting hooligan race that included pirates, presidents, and even a floating forest. The Pro Finals were scheduled to go off immediately after this but unfortunately a sudden thunderstorm taught everyone just how fickle mountain weather could be. The Pro Finals were postponed until Sunday.
Sunday morning opened with a blast. First off after the Cadets (kids paddling under 14 years old), the Junior Expert Finals kicked off. I advanced past semi-finals in 3rd place (top 4 advanced) and LP was 5th, edged out by just one point…if only he had done a spin! Zack Mitchell followed in 6th.
In the finals, I ended up in fourth with a 93-point ride, my best score of the weekend.
After that came the Women’s finals. Morgan Tidd got two air loops in a great ride and placed 6th in Women’s Pro and Won Women’s Expert!
In the pro men’s category Alex came in 7th, going up against the top kayakers in the world and holding his own very well.
All in all, FIBArk was awesome. I had a great time paddling as well as hanging out with all the other boaters at the festival. I can’t wait for next year. For now, what's next? Skook trip.
Once again, check out the Anomaly Paddlers at FIBArk video.
For a couple of our best individual rides check out these videos:
David Spiegel's Ride
Alex Mohn's Ride
LP's Ride
See you on the river,
David Spiegel
Also, check out these photos:
LP throwing an Airwheel in his ride.
David Spiegel finishing a Wingover.
Entry Kickflip.
Launching into a loop.
3 comments:
Wow, ya'll. Congrats on kicking butt. The video looked great. It all looked like a ton of fun.
bueno!
im trying to get to skook in july. nice timing.
Nice job dudes and dudettes! David good to see your blog and it looks like you haven't missed a beat in your kayak. Do they still let you compete in JRs? This isn't fair! ;-) Looks like Alex is still killing it. That is awesome he made mens finals. Hope like is good and I would love to get together for some kayaking here in the NW.
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