2009 Freestyle World Championships

I just got back from the 2009 Freestyle kayak world championships in Thun, Switzerland. Thun is an amazing little city on the edge of the alps. The wave is made by the gates of a bridge dam that allows water into one of the two canals on the Aare river that passes through Thun. Even though the water is glacier melt from a massive glacier that you can see on the mountains practically overlooking Thun, the water is still about 65-70 degrees Fahrenheit, mostly because of the huge beautiful neon blue lake in between the glaciers and Thun where the water sits in the sun all day.

In the event itself there were over 250 competitiors from 30+ nations. The competition was held with 3-4 stages depending on how many people were in each class. For Men and Womens there were 4 stages, Prelims( 4 rides 2 count) Quarter Finals (3 rides 2 count) Semifinals( 2 rides 1 counts) and Finals ( 3 rides 1 counts). For the rest of the classes, c-1, junior men, oc1, and junior women, there were only Prelims, Semifinals, and Finals.
The results of the ICF 2009 Freestyle kayak World Championships are:

K1 Men
1 Troutman Nicholas 1.510,000Pts Final CAN
2 Jackson Eric 958,333Pts Final USA
3 Wright Stephen 790,000Pts Final USA
4 GALLAIS Jules 466,667 Final FRA
5 Kowalski Joel 410,000 Final CAN
6 Meyers Jonny 633,333 SemiFinal USA

C1
1 Bainbridge David 465,000 Final GBR
2 LaRue Guillaume 381,667 Final CAN
3 BESSEAU Alexandre 376,667 Final FRA
4 Hummel Markus 193,333 Final GER
5 Areta Odei 40,000 Final ESP
6 Jackson Dane 310,000 SemiFinal USA
13 Poffenberger Jordan 251,667 Prelims USA

K1 Women
1 Jackson Emily 553,333 Final USA
2 Gordon Ruth 348,333 Final CAN
3 Faux Tanya 340,000 Final AUS
4 SAETHER MARIANN 263,333 Final NOR
5 Wegman Martina 160,000 Final NLD

K1 Junior Men
1 Craig Jason 873,333 Final USA
2 Jackson Dane 670,000 Final USA
3 DEVRED Sebastien 640,000 Final FRA
4 Fontane Joaquim 560,000 Final ESP
5 Rowlinson James 493,333 Final AUS

K1 Junior Women
1 Newman Nouria 400,000 Final FRA
2 Hornhardt Sandrina 50,000 Final GER
3 Häberling Leoni 33,333 Final SUI

OC1
1 Laucks Jeremy 115,000 Final USA
2 Pätsch Stephan 90,000 Final GER
3 Areta Odei 25,000 Final ESP

K1 Squirt Men
1 Reeves James 127 Finals GBR
2 Toru Ishihara 93,33 Finals JPN
3 Laucks Jeremy 88 Finals USA

K1 Squirt Women
1 O'Hara Claire 80,23 Finals GBR
2 Runciman Emma 47,6 Finals GBR
3 BERTRAND VALERIE 46 Finals NOR
(for full results go to http://playak.com/article.php?sid=1448 )

Here is a short video I made of Worlds, I hope to make a few more because I have over 1000 minutes of video and I don't feel 3 minutes is enough to show even a little of Thun. Enjoy!
(Turn on HD for much better video quality)

Worlds Video No. 1 from Jordan Poffenberger on Vimeo.