Australian Freestyle Nationals 2008

Australian Mens Freestyle Champion: Adrian Kiernan warming up on the skippy feature.
Australian Junior Freestyle Champion: James Rolo charging to victory in the finals!

A great weekend was had by all with 28 competitors. It was great to see that half of these competitors were juniors. The junior men's was held on Jack's with James Rowlinson placing first followed by Declan Czajkowski in second and Morgan James in third.The junior women's event was held on the wave just above last drop (no name) and was won by Emily Kaar followed up by Avril Moore in second placing.By lunch time Saturday the seniors still did not have a suitable feature although we had been working on Fryer for the past couple of weeks we could not get it back to a good feature. Luckily there was a stopper just behind Fryer which was upsetting the rafts and they turned the water ... we immediately set to with some alterations to the bollards and when the water was turned back on we had a great feature to run the senior K1 events on. A good steep wave that we classed as unobtainable and so we set forth on the prelims for the rest of Saturday.Sunday started with finals of K1 with the following placings,

Men's

1st Adrian Kiernan
2nd Liam Corr
3rd Russ Boza

Adrian Kiernan throwing down in the finals.

Our only Women's K1 contender was Christine Haylock, a new arriver to our shores but willing competitor, who has flown off to Darwin with a gold to start her new job. Good luck Christine.C1 and OC1 were held on Jack's with a few trying the single paddle for the first time in comp.C1 placings were

1st Jez Blanchard
2nd James Rowlinson
3rd Liam Corr

OC1: 1st Liam Corr with the other places going to Jez Balnchard, James Rowlinson and Russ Boza to work out with their unique styles of competing.Even though the weather was a little cold, wet and windy a great time was had by all and we were pleased with the turnout.I would like to thank the following sponsors who donated to the prizes over the weekend.Feed the Rat, Cumec magazine, Wetspot, Enrtopy Gear, Dagger Kayaks, Lounge Kayaker & Wavemonkey.And a really big thank you for Jez Blanchard who took on the role a MC for most of the weekend and has been encouraging the junior development at Penrith along with Mark Hammer and Liam Corr as well as everyone else who helped in the organization and setting up for the event.We also had the NSW premier of Downunder the Horizonline on Saturday night which was a great night for all. (some were still feeling the effects on Sunday well into the comp)We should have some video up on Lounge Kayaker soon and some pics in Cumec mag sometime in the future so keep a lookout for them.Otherwise thanks to everyone for making it a great weekend and hopefully we can have some more events in the future.

Adrian maximizing the airtime on a bouncy "fryer" feature.

Thanks very much to Jim for the write up and Maggie Crocker for the pictures.