Women's Canoe at Slalom Worlds: Carolyn's Experience

The follow is a writeup Carolyn Peterson sent out to her friends detailing her experience while competing at the 2009 ICF Canoe Slalom World Championships.

This is how it went on the water for her... 

-Carolyn Peterson represented Team USA by competing in C1W at the 2009 ICF Canoe Slalom World Championships. The event was a great learning opportunity and a great honor as well.

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As it got closer to the finals at the World Championships for whitewater
slaloms, my nerves got the best of me. I was ranked 15th going into the
Worlds and ended up 13th place at the race.  Most of the other gals ranked
ahead of me had kayaked at other international competitions and /or had
been on their nations kayak team. They were much more used to doing this
sort of thing. I was 6th after the first qualifying rounds and then
dropped to 10th after the next round. The last day was a much harder
course and my nervousness took over when the going got tough. When I got
to the bottom my hair was all wet and I knew I wasn't going to advance to
the final round with that performance. But the other gals ranked lower
than me, who had reached the bottom before me, all had battle scars and
expressions of hurt and disappointment as well. One of the gate judges
who I talked with afterwards said it well, in that she enjoyed watching
the C-1W‚s the most because we just don't give up when things don‚t go
perfectly. We have to fight to the finish in other words.

My run started out with some perfect lines but about 1/3 of the way down,
I was unable to punch into this one eddy on river right and ended up
pointed downstream. I quickly reset and got into the river left eddy on
the same level and was stunned at what was in the eddy with me. I was
face to face with a large snake looking thing that was 1 foot above the
water. The head was a large camera lens! I could of pushed it over to
shore with my paddle but I needed it to stabilize myself as this was a
whirlpool eddy. I heard the camera crew on shore say pull it back!  I
just couldn't quite get back on line after that. I was making the gates
but it was a struggle as my nerves had me too tense. The big drop in the
middle of the course had arrived and I got the eddy at the top drop of a
series of three. However, I flipped as I tried to punch the hole that was
the required exit. My teammate and another C-1 W had previously chipped
their tooth in this area and another bruised her shoulder. I rolled up
extremely quick and caught the eddy in the middle drop but was pointed
downstream. The eddy was not much wider than my boat so there wasn't much
room to turn around but I managed to get through this without missing a
gate. This just shook me up a bit more and then again when the next big
move arrived near the end of the course, I couldn‚t punch the eddy line
and get the up gate at gate 18. (I was thinking I needed to pull into an
eddy above this drop and have a settle down moment of a few seconds but I
didn't.) I flipped and apparently rolled up and passed through gate 19
without realizing it. I pondered a bit to see if I could go back for the
gates and while I did so, the eddy I was in took me up through gate 19
which was the wrong direction. I was so mad at myself that I took off
like a bat out of hell and ripped it up to the finish line. I would of
made the finals if I hadn't of paused and likewise 50ed that gate.

This was a huge challenge for me and I learned a lot from this experience.
I can say I am eager to get back to racing in the US at the lower level
and less stressful races that just seem to be fun for me.

Tags: Canoe Slalom