photo left: Tao Berman, known better for hucking himself off big drops, enters the freestyle scene and loops his way to the Men’s K1 Gold in the Pre- Worlds.
photo Darrell Wiebe. photo opposite: Valerie
Bertrand, Canadian kayaking diva, squirting to a Gold in the Women’s K1 Squirt. photo Matt Hamilton.
On the Mur River,smack dab in the middle of Graz lives… Terminator III.Terminator III is a sticky hole about twenty feet wide with a tricky spin corner on the river left
side.The hole best suited right cartwheeler’s but most hole moves were per- formed successfully either way. Thousands of onlookers and passers-by watched from the bridge and were wowed by boaters sticking huge aerial loops and throwing flurries of cartwheels. Canadian fans were reward-
ed with fantastic performances from Canadian team members. Graham ‘Hurricane’ Harada stood second in C1 going into finals where he finished 8th behind America’s Bill McKnight and Luke Hopkins. Stepan Fiedler of the Czech Republic sliced and diced his way into third. Joan Marc Pasques of
Spain took gold in OC1 fol- lowed by James Weir and Robert Dixon, both from Great Britain.
Other stars emerging from
Team Canada were Valerie Bertrand who stole the gold while teammate Nadine Giffin placed fourth in the women’s squirt competition. Dustin Urban from the USA took men’s squirt gold. Dustin also captured the silver
medal in junior K1 behind teammate Calef Letorney. Sean Brabant,also of the USA,round- ed out the field with bronze. Brook Winger from the USA
cartwheeled her way to her third senior women’s K1 title. Narrowly missing the podium, Montreal divas Fanny Gregoire and former Pre-world champ,
It was a man from Oregon who was the best of the day.
Julie Dion led the Canadians to fourth and fifth respectively. Laura Cockins was unstop- pable, leading the junior K1 women to the gold medal from her first ride.With Gold medal- list Laura Cockins and top jun- iors from last year’s World Championships about to join the senior ranks, Canada has person for person the best team in the world in the women’s division.
The highly contested men’s K1 field with almost 100 com- petitors wrapped up with the almighty Americans winning their 5th consecutive title. Canadian Champion Billy Harris and Vancouver boy James Mole had outstanding rides all week capturing the 9th and 10th spots,but it was a
man from Oregon who was the best on the day. Tao Berman, better known for running huge drops and setting world records in his creek boat, took time away from the gnar to show the world he can rip in a playboat. While Tao took gold, ‘All Day’ Jay Kincaid clean cart- wheeled his EZ to silver. Preventing an American sweep were two super smooth boaters,Yagi Tatsuya of Japan in third followed by Italian team paddler Roberto Bogazzi. The current World Champion and favourite, Eric Jackson, settled for fifth. Don’t worry folks, like any good action hero worth his salt, EJ is surely thinking,“I’ll be back!”
—Darrell Wiebe
fall2002 7
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