“Tough course presents challenges for world's best canoe slalom athletes”
A quote from an article released by the International Canoe Federation regarding the Wold Cup in Bratislava and it’s pretty spot on. A challenging course for everyone this weekend with an exceptionally high error and penalty rate. I suffered with an unfortunate recirc on one of the more straightforward gates while carried good speed through the trickier ones.
Very grateful to Anto (team canada coach) for helping us out with video and some race day coaching support! People like these make such a huge difference to small nations like the Cooks with our minimal resources.
With some of the worlds best suffering similar fates it left a great opportunity for success if you were one of the few who held it together. Luuka Jones won her first World Cup medal claiming the silver!! Finn Butcher was bumped just out of the final with an unlucky touch finishing in 11th. With the aptly named ‘Niagara’ drop at the bottom you never knew what the outcome would be until the very last gate which made for very exciting watching. Great to see some different faces on the podium!
As we weren’t racing in the finals we took Saturday as a rest day and final day to explore Vienna. We walked the beautiful streets to the Naschmarkt. A market filled with Israeli and Indian restaurants as well as fresh produce, spices, dried fruit and nut stalls.
We decided upon a place called Neni. The middle eastern Asian fusion chicken salad with mango aoli was insane we also had warm pita with babagnush and mango chili hummus and falafel which was equally delish.
Ella tested out the local drink ‘hugo’ - a refreshing combo of prosecco, mint, lime and elderflower.
Today we drive 4.5hrs to Ljubljana in Slovenia, one of Ella and I’s favourite cities! Michael from team Canada is joining us for the road trip (see our great companion below)
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