Paddle4Play

Paddle4Play: February 2012

Wednesday 22 February 2012

GMIT Intervarsity's 2012

So the time of year was upon us, where every paddling student in the country descends on one poor helpless town to run riot paddle hard and generally drink the place dry.

This year GMIT were hosting the event in Castlebar, Co Mayo.

The Friday saw the first event in a cold Crossmolina the coaches travelled pulling trailers laden with boats of all colours and sizes, as the Students arrived the polo comp kicked off with an exciting first round of games seeing a brave trinity narrowly miss out to a strong Limerick team, The 2 pre tournament favourites MUCK (Maynooth) and the GMIT had an opening round exchange with GMIT proving strongest taking the convincing win,

As the event continued so did the weather with drizzle and rain to contend with a wicked side wind flying across the pitch, One highlight was to see Carlow or ORK IT as its more affectionally known line up with a single man against a full team of 5. On his own Orky battled hard through tiredness and pain scoring 2 goals on his was to a loss knocking him out of the competition.DSC03086

DCU took the wildcard place into the Semi-finals against an improving UCD having dispatched there local rivals they were pushed into a tense final against favourites GMIT

After a strong 1st half DCU were holding out at 0-0 and GMIT just couldn't find the net hitting all sides of the goal until finally into the 2nd half Kevin Pierce stepped up to finally score the first goal from then on it was one way traffic to leave GMIT convincing winners for the 2nd year running.DSC03179

Friday Night the crowds headed to a busy Castlebar for celebration and socialising before the following days events.

Saturday started bright and early with a tough team white water race claiming many swims and a lot of pride after the white water the teams headed south to Tuam Co, Galway for the freestyle event.

The freestyle event took the format of team jam sessions DSC03312with the top 8 moves of each paddler combined to create a team score, with many current and ex Irish team paddlers in attendance the field was stacked with talent, smooth cartwheels from Colin Wong and fast helix’s of Barry Loughnane saw some huge scores. The point of having a team event meant it was up to the whole team to perform for their combined total with ORK IT again a single paddler making it difficult to accumulate any real points.

A super strong University of Limerick team took the win with a great display working through the scoreDSC03351 sheet. In second was NUIG led by Barry and Andrew really working the score sheet and in third with an improving performance was DCU showing it could have been anyone's game.DSC03400DSC03405DSC03427DSC03399

The Evening saw the masses return the the Royal Theatre in Castlebar for a night of Soul with a James Brown tribute band in the house providing the music of the night.DSC03436

A tired Sunday morning arrived with the long distance races to be held in Castlebar with a lack of rescue meant the race was cut from a healthy 8km to a short sprint over 2km

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the K1 was first with a fast race led start to finish by Tom Brennan from Trinity followed closely in second place by Liam Banks of UCD next off was the high performance class again led by Canoeing Ireland athlete Neil Fleming taking a comfortable win with Colin Wong in second place. In the women's class Laura Griffin took the win with Aisling Griffin in second place.

Varsities LD

There were a huge number of GP paddlers looking for the points for their colleges.

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The prize giving was held back in the college with some delay while the final points were added the results were announced

1st University Limerick

2nd UCD

3rd Trinity

With the decision made that the 2013 Intervarsity's will be held in Limerick once again.

Well Done to WeeMan Mark O’Connor for putting on an excellent event, thoroughly enjoyed by all!

 

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Paddy Tec feeling worse for wear after a fast 2km race

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Sluice Rodeo 5th Feb 2012

The first Sluice Rodeo of 2012 brough with it high flows and a large turnout with over 30 competitors on a cold February day saw a great buzz about the place getting people back in the mood for some freestyle.

With 3.5 megs plus saw a big feature which was very flushy final results for expert men

1st Moe Kelleher, 2nd Neil Gibson 3rd Adrian Durrant

heres some pictures from the day thanks to Mick Feeney.

Monday 6 February 2012

Salmon Leap Slalom Course

During the past year at work we have been trying to put together an effective Slalom course which can be used by both our high performance athletes as well as beginners introduction to slalom, with problems on route, through lots of hard work we have finally got a course together.

The Course is set in the River Liffey along the grounds of Castletown house in Celbridge, offering an excellent facility for all paddlers.

Heres a quick video showing the course

Slalom @ Salmon Leap Canoe Club

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