2011 Freestyle World Championship

My first world championship started with a 5 AM flight from Denver to Toronto, a 5 hour lay-over in Toronto, then an 8 hour flight to Munich, GER and finally a two hour drive before arriving at the event site in Plattling.  I went straight to the competition feature where I met the rest of the Swedish freestyle Team.  After a nice little chat we all went paddling.  My first training session was great; the water was warm and I was hitting all my tricks.  I was so excited to be in Plattling getting to compete at my first international championship.

                         Check out my first training session, courtesy of my Swedish teammate David Sandberg.

My training sessions leading up to the competition had been great and I felt really relaxed and confident.  But on the day of the prelims of K1 junior men (K1JM) I was getting super nervous and I started getting stressed out.  There were 7 heats in prelims and since I was in heat 6 I got the chance to see a bunch of really good rides so I really felt the pressure was on for me to do well.

In my first ride I felt I was rushing it and I was not at all happy with my performance.  Before my 2nd run Courtney Kerin, a K1 junior women's athlete from New Zealand whom I had gotten to know the week prior to the competition, told me to calm down and focus on what I was going to do.  Her advice helped a lot as I did not hear the sound of the crowd; all I heard was the sound of the water.  Needless to say, my 2nd run was much better than my first.

Following my heat I headed straight over to the to the results board waiting for the result to get posted.  I had placed 25th with only the top 10 advancing to the semi-final.  At first I was very upset as I felt I could have done so much better.  But then I thought "Hey, I gave it my best shot, I tried my hardest and I cannot wait until 2013 world championship to be held at NOC in North Carolina".  

Currently I am training hard and doing my best to learn new things and keep on having fun.  Next week I will be heading to the Ottawa river.  See you guys on the water!