Jasper Mocke's European Hat Trick: Done

This last weekend was held at the French Britain the 3rd edition of the Breizh Ocean Race, which witnessed again a solid performance by South African specialist Jasper Mocke, who finishes this way a very succesful European Tour that started one and a half month ago training at Santander (Spain), where he has found a nice base camp for his European seasons.

The long course race start with the French Britain coast behind . Photo: Philippe Blanquet (Lemon-Prod)

After his victories at the Ohana Mana Cup of Sardinia and the Greek Aegean Race, this Sunday he got the 2,400 € prize for the winner of the Breizh Ocean Race ahead of Spanish Walter Bouzán and again the Australian Dane Sloss, another surfski specialist who completed the podium.

On Saturday it took place a 6 kilometres prologue to decide Sunday's start list and also for the organizers to check if any of the contestants maybe was not prepared enough to face a possible rough sea next day.

Miller's Run Downwind with Oscar Chalupsky and Rob Mousley

One of the best videos I've seen this year is this wonderful shoot of the Miller's Run Downwind, from Miller's Point to Fish Hoek (Cape Town, South Africa), made by Rob Mousley (creator of the compulsory visit web surfski.info) on board of a SS2 with legend Oscar Chalupsky. No music, so great atmosphere and an real on-board-feeling for ten minutes. A film to sit down, take notes and learn...

Jasper Mocke wins the Aegean Race of surfski in Greece

Jasper Mocke, ayer, en aguas del Egeo

Jasper Mocke got yesterday another victory in his succesful European tour. After his great perfomances at Rome and Sardinia, it was at the Aegean Race, held on the Athenian Coast of Greece, where he won over a short but qualified field of around 50 paddlers.

Sadly, the Meltemi, well known wind from the North of the Aegean Sea, didn't show yesterday and the race was competed under flat conditions, with barely no swell to surf and lots of paddling instead. This were not ideal conditions for South Africans or Australians, but anyway they managed to get the two first positions through Jasper Mocke and Dane Sloss, who finally arrived to the finish line with a short difference of 13 seconds for Mocke, who stopped the clock at 1h19'41". After two minutes, third position, closing the podium, went to Spanish Federico "Kiko" Vega.

At this link you can see the final results.

Len Jenkins Jr. remains unbeaten at Fish River Marathon after his 6th K1 title. Michele Eray takes her first in Women.

The Natal Canoe Club paddler, Len Jenkins Jr., claimed this weekend his sixth consecutive K1 title at the Fish River Marathon, held at Cradock (Eastern Cape, South Africa), getting that way the SA K1 title. At the same time, Michele Eray  keeps getting titles this season 2012 and claimed victory in the Senior Women category with a good superiority on her rivals.

The 1,416 paddlers who took the start crossed Grassridge Dam facing a long first stage for 47 km. down to Knutsford. Two and a half kilometres further, they portaged the dam wall and strated paddling the river itself.

Jenkins and McGregor entering Keith's Flyover, with Grant van der Walt 50 metres behind. Foto: Jetline Action Photo

From the first strokes, Len Jenkins took the lead with a wide group following his wash, up to twenty paddlers with Jacques Theron and Hank McGregor at Jenkins' first wash. But the portage was not wide enough for so many people, so it made a first selection. Theron lost the good pace and Brandon van der Walt joined a three paddlers group on the lead along with McGregor and Jenkins. Just 5 minutes later, shooting Double Trouble at Collet's Weir, Jenkins got trapped facing upstream at the second jump and lost some precious seconds. He had then to make an extra effort to overpass Greg Louw, Lance Kime and Cam Schoeman to arrive at feared Keith's Flyover rapid leading the race again.

New World Champion Iván Alonso takes another double victory at Canal de Castilla (Spain)

The brand new double Marathon World Champion, Iván Alonso, got last Sunday another two victories at the Canal de Castilla International Regatta, held at Melgar de Fernamental (central Spain). The also world champions at Rome, Antonio Campos and Eva Barrios were the winners in the C1 and Women races, in that order. The K2 Senior Men was comfortably claimed by Rome gold medalists Emilio Merchán and Iván Alonso, as a perfect end for their amazing season.

Some of the best Spanish marathonians, also with clubs from Portugal and the Hungarian National Team, dated at the Spanish Channel of Castilla. The K1 race was with no doubt the most competed of the day, with four world champions in the five boats leading bunch, including Merchán, Iván Alonso, Jorge Alonso and Fiuza, plus the young promising David R. Dorado. After the second portage, just Merchán, Fiuza and Iván Alonso managed to stay in the lead, while Jorge Alonso and Dorado stayed a few metres behind fighting for a comeback. Fiuza, suffered at the third and fourth prtages, where he finally lost contact. That made a two paddlers sprint won by Iván Alonso, with Merchán in second place and Fiuza finally third.

Jasper Mocke wins the Ohana Mana Cup of surfski in Sardinia (Italy)

Winner, Jasper Mocke

The brilliant bronze medalists at last Marathon World Championships in Rome, Jasper Mocke and Simon van Gysen (RSA), kept showing their current great shape last weekend at the Ohana Mana Cup of surfski held at the Island of Sardinia (Italy).

With a 38 km. downwind course along the southern coast of the island, about a hundred surfskis took the start on this 2012 edition. And, as it is usual, South Africans, with permission of the few Australian paddlers, claimed the main positions of the race. They put 5 paddlers into the top ten, claimed victory in the Women's race and showed Europeans again in their own field the superiority of southern hemisphere paddlers when it comes to surfski paddling.

Jasper Mocke and Simon van Gysen got the lead for the full length of the race, until finally the younger Mocke got some advantage facing the finish line, where he entered in first position (1h36'30") with 44 seconds over his marathon K2 partner, winner this spring of the Eurochallenge at Vilajoiosa (Spain).

First anniversary of Elite Kayak

And we hope that it's only the first of many more. On October 2nd, 2011, we started this project plenty of hope. One month later it arrived the first entry in this blog (just Spanish at that time). The great welcome we have had within the canoeing community and all the good moments lived during this year are just pushing us to keep on going towards further goals.

The web both in Spanish and English, the second hand material section, the Youtube video channel, the Twitter account, the facebook page... they all are traduced in a big effort, but the three people nowadays involved in this tasks think that those hours stolen to sleep are worth with every visit, every video play, every follower, every comment, every "I like".

To celebrate it we have started working in new challenges we hope to introduce during this Fall season. They will represent even more work to do, but as my father always said "some others like licking padlocks...", so we will still think that it's worth.

I wouldn't like to finish this short post without thanking all those journalists and photographers, paddlers themselves at 99%, who from every corner of the globe, from Australia to Canada, from South Africa to Norway, 365 days a year, document and tell on the web all the races, trainings and stuff happening around. Without them, projects like this wouldn't be possible. Big applause for every one of them.

We hope to be here next year writing our second anniversary post (and you reading it). Meanwhile, we've got an exciting year 2013 ahead to paddle as much as we can. And some of you will even do it fast, haha. See you wherever there is water.