Worlds 2011! ENG

For the last couple weeks I've been competing at the ICF Freestyle World Championship in Plattling, Germany. The opening ceremony took place on the 20th, and from then on it's been a pretty full competition with a tide schedule and long days due the danger of a flood on the Isar.

Team Spain dressed up!

Prelims started and I made the first cut (top 25) in 12th, later that day I made the second cut into semi finals (top 10) in 8th place. I was pretty happy for this, my rides weren't really good so I wasn't sure I'd make it! Next day we did the semi finals, top 10 cut to 5. I was super lucky on this one and managed to get into the finals in 4th place!! I was super stoked!

We had the finals at 5pm on Saturday. There was a lot of people watching, and the hole had dropped a bit. My first two rides were pretty bad, I wasn't centered and could get the moves and feel good in the wave. I started from below on my third ride and managed to pull some better moves. I was happy with my ride, however some of the moves wren't good enough so they didn't score… Finally I ended up in 5th place. Still pretty happy about this result, this is my first final ever on a big competition, and however this was my goal (make finals) for this comp, I knew it'd be really hard.

Pringle stoked!!!

On the 24th of July of 2010 I injured myself while paddling at the spot in Sort. In November, almost when I recovered form my ribs injury I broke my wrist and torn my ligament… I couldn't paddle any freestyle, kayak or do a lot of other things for 7 months in total. I started paddling early March this year, and with three months of hard work I made it to Worlds. However I know I wasn't still ready to win, next time is going to be different!

Thanks Jacko, u've been a great help!

Finally, I want to thank everyone who's helped me out!! All my buddies from the Team and from everywhere in the World, you are great! Thanks Jacko for being such a great coach, Quim Fontané for keep pushing and developing freestyle kayak in Spain, Tresa for being there and help a lot with everything, Mikel Sarasola for coming and making such cool videos, all of you reading and Alicia for being the best and always there!

Last, thanks to Robert Sommer for organizing such a great event and to the ICF guys and Lluis Rabaneda for making this Worlds the best possible!

More info, results, vídeos... check: http://www.icf-freestyle.de