Paddle Australia ran the second National Wildwater Development Camp of 2018 last week on the Snowy River, NSW.
Wednesday 26th – Saturday 29th September
Athletes from all across Australia gathered at Island Bend
campsite for half a week of coaching from some of Australia’s best Wildwater paddlers. Most participants came from Victoria and New South Wales, but local paddlers Demi O’Brien (SCC)
and Christopher Greed (AKC) made the journey over to show some Wildwater WA representation. All coaches on the camp had been on the Australian Wildwater Team and competed at World
Championships and World Cups. Robert McIntyre (NSW), Alex McIntyre (NSW) and Dita
Pahl (VIC) were on this year’s senior Wildwater team, and Madeleine Batters (VIC) has been on multiple U23
teams.
The camp was run on a 2km stretch of continuous grade 2 whitewater on the Snowy River, with a few grade 3 rapids to test everyone’s abilities. Up to three sessions were run each day, some of which focused on wildwater technique, line reading, sprint time trials, strength conditioning in the gym, and free time
paddling plastic creek boats on larger upper sections of the Snowy River. The 5th Southern Cup Race was also held on the Friday, allowing athletes to see how they ranked amongst others.
Demi went over early to Victoria to complete her sprint coach qualification, while Christopher stayed behind to compete in the Snowy River Extreme Race on
Sunday, finishing 24th.
The camp was a huge success, and Paddle Australia are thrilled to have 30 paddlers from as far as WA participated. Many more development camps like this are in the planning, so keep your eyes peeled next year if this interests you!
Paddle WA.
