INTERVIEW James Bebbington–Kayaker
James Bebbington won the 2011 Freestyle Kayaking World Championships, by the time you read this he may have won them again. “Pringle” - as he is known points of his incredible sport, and how he managed to make a career out of it.
MOVE FREE TO
ow did you get started in kayaking? I saw a guy running waterfalls on TV, it captured my imagination
immediately. My dad found a local canoe club
and took me along to their winter pool sessions. I was nine or ten at the time, from there I just never stopped.
And when did that become wanting to kayak as a professional? I never really aimed to be a professional, I just loved freestyle and only wanted to be the best I could be and have been focused on that for years. I left school and did a two year course in Adventure Sports so that I could kayak as much as possible, then I worked many kinds of jobs that let me train and paddle almost full-time - I lifted boxes off DHL trucks, took rafting photos, coached kayaking, was a video boater in Uganda, painted houses and did odd jobs for friends and even worked doing Photoshop. I think because I love what I do so much and because I worked hard to keep improving eventually people and companies noticed that and began
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targeted it; it’s just a by-product of focusing on what you love for years.
What would you say are both the best and the worst things about kayaking professionally? Well, the best is I get to train and compete full-time. The worst, it’s not that bad really, in that I spend quite a bit of time editing videos, sorting photos, doing blogs and emails but I actually enjoy most of that too. I guess the real downside is that it’s not as big a sport as football! But the upside of that is that it has a soul and people, with people still doing it because they love it, not only for the money.
You seem to place a lot of emphasis on your preparations out of the water. How do you prepare yourself mentally and physically out of the water? I paddled a lot at the same venue where the GB slalom kayakers train when I was younger. I got to see how they train and this inspired me. I understood that if I really wanted to excel in freestyle I should work on all areas not just technique. I usually do two sessions on the water a
day, followed by a strength training programme my coach Dennis Newton (SweetWater coaching) has set me, which ranges from four times a week to two, depending on which phase I’m in. Every morning I do a routine of yoga and light strength exercise to running and cycling to maintain overall to freestyle so it keeps me fresh.
With such a long list of achievements in the sport, what are your ambitions going forward and what motivates you to train and compete? new ways to improve and be more consistent. Our sport is getting very competitive now, with maybe ten guys now who paddle at the really top level and you constantly need to re-invent yourself to keep up and to stay ahead. Right now we’re all so close that it’s a bit of a lottery to say who will come out on top. I have some good ideas of how I can set myself apart again, so moving forwards I just want to be the best athlete that I can be for the next 20 years or more. Ideally my dream is that if the sport
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