August 2004
World Cup Tour and Athens-Greece

NEXT ADVENTURE . . . 28TH MODERN OLYMPICS
The 2004 World Cup season has ended, and while we still have no idea of our final standing (we suspect the International Canoe Federation has hired IRS Tax lawyers to compute this, and it will take a few days), our sites are firmly on the great race in Athens. Less than a month away at this point, we thought it would be a good time to recap some of our summer adventures so far, and give a little prelude to upcoming weeks before the Olympics.

We are writing from Pontarlier, France, which is less than two hours north of Geneva, Switzerland. It is the hometown of our coach, Yves Narduzzi, and the home region of a favorite cheese, French ‘Comte.’ We are here for a little respite before we travel back to Greece, and begin our final stage in this Olympic quest. In fact, as our host and good friend Vincent Bichet noted, the central theme to our trips often seems to be food rather than rivers. This sounds about right. Here’s to the

GREAT BEER and brown water in Bohemia . . .
After our training trip in Athens at the end of June, we traveled to Prague, Czech Republic for the first of three World Cup races. Prague feels like home to us (we have been racing and training there almost every year for a decade now), but this was our first trip where we did not stay with friends or in a school dormitory. The Olympic team head coach, Sylvan Poberaj, had the good instinct to suggest we stay in a real hotel. We did, and to our great surprise there was a neighborhood Czech beer garden only two hundred yards away. Matt ate Goulash and dumplings almost every day, and Joe firmly stuck with the roasted duck with potato and white dumplings. Beer was a necessary side for all of these meals at ‘Hoffmanu’ Restaurant, and Gambrinus was the house brew.

Our race in Prague was good. Though a medal still eludes us, we did finish 4th in the first heat, and 8th in the final. Matt declared it the hardest sequence of gates on easy water he had ever raced. The Vlatava remains the dirtiest whitewater we race on: each time we tried to point to particular ribbon of current – usually called the ‘green water,’ because on clear rivers this is the natural color – we had to catch ourselves and say ‘brown water.’ This lame joke buoyed us through our training and racing. Perhaps the only disappointment with Prague was our hasty departure after the race, missing what is often the best party on the race circuit; and missing a last opportunity to catch up with our good friends from Czech.

GREEN WATER: Slumpy spirits amidst Bavarian Splendor . . .
Next on the tour was Augsburg, Germany. Not meaning to slight any of our German brethren, we did tell people that our main purpose for attending this race was that it was on the way to France from Czech. However, in our Olympic planning we thought another World Cup race before the final in Bourg St. Maurice would be good preparation. Augsburg is a beautiful and ancient town, and the whitewater is the most historic in slalom: many of the same features that athletes raced on at the 1972 Olympics remain in place today. The Washing machine, the Whale, the Zoom Floom, the second Whale, the Curler, Spin Dry and ‘The Hole’ are all classic pieces of whitewater. The water itself was a stunning contrast to the Vlatava: emerald green, almost clean enough to drink, and as it moves quite a bit faster than the water down the course in Prague. Finally, we retrieved our bicycles that we had bought two summers ago and used throughout our training and racing in the Worlds last summer. This is Augsburg’s greatest virtue: the bike paths go for dozens of miles, are well marked, and take you through deep woods, around lakes, under tunnels, and into the heart of the city. It is an amazing set-up. In the end, none of this could help our fatigue and eagerness to move on to France. Our motivation was a tad low, and while we felt as comfortable as ever on the Eiskanal (as the course in called in Augsburg), we barely made it through the first heats. One move stymied us throughout the weekend. A spin out on our first run dragged down a fast second run, and landed us in 15th, the last position to go onto the semi-final. The next day, on our semi-final run, at the now infamous ‘Curler’ move, we smacked the gate one more time and proceeded to fall off course for the rest of the run, finishing 14th (only ten boats go onto the final).

PRINCE OF GRUYERES: Beaufort Cheese and Bourg St. Maurice . . .
With Augsburg finished, we quickly moved onto Bourg St. Maurice, France, home of the World Cup final (and our last World Cup race as National Team Athletes!). The Isere River tumbles and churns out of the high Alps, but a small dam regulates its flow in the town of Bourg St. Maurice. At the edge of town, immediately downstream of the dam, the French have modified the river channel and created the greatest natural river whitewater course in the world. For the slalom athlete it is fast and furious. It is also cold, and Matt had to pretend not to be affected when he appeared each day in his short sleeve paddling jacket – the only athlete, it appeared, to be in such short supply of gear. When the ambient temperature rose above 75 degrees, Joe matched Matt’s gear, and for the rest of the week and during the race they remained the only athletes to show off their ‘guns.’

We had a great race in terms of our comfort on the whitewater and the feel of the boat, but too many touches and a miscalculated McDonalds run thwarted a great performance. Our first and last runs of the weekend were a little slow, but the middle two were fast, and the second run was among the fastest runs for the first day (a few hundredths behind the World Champions). It was also the first time we finished ahead of the Olympic Champions, Peter and Pavel Hochschorner.

Outside of our race runs, we had a fantastic visit with our friends Sam and Paul Arpin, and ate beaucoup de fromage, especially the local Gruyere, Beaufort. We also went paragliding.

STEPPING OFF THE EDGE: Flying in the air with the mellowest people on earth
From a grassy ridge next to an old fortification (affectionately called the ‘Cheese Castle’ because it now houses a hundred goats and a ‘fromagerie’), we ran down slope towards a cliff’s edge strapped to a professional who was in turn attached to parasail (looks like a very wide parachute). Matt’s guide took time to savor a hand rolled cigarette, whereas Joe’s guide wasted no time and they were in the air before Matt’s guy could blow a round of smoke rings. The other American athletes who took flight that morning were Eric Ameson, one of our rising C-1 athletes; Hannah Larsen, one of our National Team women; and Chris Ennis, our Olympic C-1. We were all aghast at the ease and informality we were about to fly into the air: no waivers, no video or instruction, no warnings . . . we hadn’t even paid yet. And off into the air we all went, like kites blowing off the side of a mountain. There is not much to say after that – it was more than fun . . . it was beautiful and peaceful, at least until the death spirals. You had to hint to your guide that these were OK, but our guides knew we were sturdy whitewater athletes and they held nothing back.

The nausea only hit Matt when he landed. We all got a chance to steer while flying, and this was the real magic: tugging gently on the handles, feeling the wing bank and pick up speed (turning also meant a drop in elevation, and a leap of the stomach into the throat). The landing was easier than jumping off a swing set at the playground. We all felt curiously guilty, like humans had somehow cheated in the age-old hunger to fly. It was too easy, we thought, until we contemplated having to do the whole thing ALONE, of being thousands of feet in the hair with a hundred strands of kite string attached to a giant laundry bag. Only hours after the experience we were back on the fast waters of Bourg, and the sensation was similar, minus the exposure and the nausea. Maybe we knew how to fly after all.

PRELUDE TO THE OLYMPICS: Responsible Risk Taking Amidst Chaos . . .
A final story comes from our warm up at the World Cup Final in Bourg, and serves as a prelude to the race in Athens. The race course at Bourg starts with some small drops, but just above the start is a giant drop with one of the best ‘Boof’ moves in slalom (a ‘boof’ is where you launch your boat off the “lip” of a drop into the calmer eddy water below – the sensation of flying is amplified and the impact of hitting the relatively flat eddy water sounded like ‘BOOF’ to some paddler long ago). Most of the time, athletes warm up above the drop, and then run it, usually without error. After various floods this year, the rocks had moved slightly, and the boof is harder to execute now than in past years. Paddlers scraped or ‘pitoned’ the rock, flipped, broke their stern, and on a few runs almost swam out of their boats. On our third race run we failed to ‘boof’ and ran over the middle hole in the drop, our stern was pushed far under and smashed against the rock. It cracked, but luckily only a little water was leaking. We almost flipped, too. This was only minutes before our race run. As we floated into an eddy where our competitors were waiting, Joe noticed the egg white eyes they showed after seeing our close call. Most of them had decided not the run the drop for days now, and by our last run no one was running the drop, except for us. They all warmed up above, and then carried their boats around the drop, and then proceeded down to the start pool.

This may sound like braggadocio, but it is really a testament to how we want to race. We fancy ourselves river runners in addition to racers, and part of running rivers is that you encounter rapids and moves that are scary, and you still run them. This takes courage and a trust in your ability (or your partner, as is our case). This is the responsible risk taking part: we knew we could run the drop well, and we did not want to step back because of one miscalculation the run before. We wanted to learn from the experience, and bring that added knowledge to the next run down the drop. In what would be our last World Cup race, with a slightly broken stern, with an outside chance to medal, and we wanted to run the drop. We knew it was a small reckoning of our resolve as a team, as whitewater athletes. Peeling out of a swirly eddy, we paddled down to the curling ‘entry’ wave and straightened the boat out a little and flew clear off the drop into the eddy. “BOOF,” and we were on our way.

No matter how you place, racing at Bourg feels like an accomplishment. We are certain the same will be true in Athens, but have our eyes on a little better pre-race preparation. And then we will see where we fly. . .

Stay tuned for actual Olympic coverage on NBC, online updates with www.canoeracer.com, and various other media outlets. We will try to keep you posted as we get more information.

Thanks again for all of your support!
-Joe and Matt