June 10, 2008
 

Dear Wildwater Racers and Friends:

FIBArk is just a few days from now. This event includes the Western Junior Team Trials (which will determine the rest of the 2008 USA Junior Wildwater Team). Members of the 2008 USA Junior Wildwater Team will be competing in the International Junior Wildwater Race (“Titlis-Rivey-Race 2008”) in Buochs, SUI (close to Luzern) in mid-July.

We also bring you news about the 2008 USA Wildwater National Championships, which are barely 2 months from now on the Deerfield River near Charlemont, MA. Seth Eisner has been working with Karen Blom at Zoar Outdoors to make the Nationals a superb event. Read all about it in this newsletter. It's time for all wildwater athletes in the USA to make their plans to compete for "National Champion".

On the international scene, the 2008 USA Senior Wildwater Team participated in the 2008 Wildwater World Championships in Ivrea, Italy. Our athletes went 5 for 5 in the Masters races. John Pinyerd was 1st and Michael Harris was 3rd in C1. In K1, Chris Hipgrave and Maurizio Tognacci came in second in their classes and David Jones was 3rd in his. In the Senior Classic race, we have 2 racers place within 10% of the winning time in their class - Tom Wier (8.3%) and Tiereny O'Sullivan (8.43%). The article about the Masters athletes includes links to websites where you can see all of the results, view videos, and read more about the 2008 World Championships. Also look for the link to Tom Wier's journal for a lot more detail about how the USA Team did in the Worlds.

Last but not least, we have includes reports from recently completed wildwater races on Cheat River Canyon and the North Branch of the Potomac River as well as news about the Mid Atlantic Downriver Series (MADS).

Chuck Brabec
Editor & Webmaster, USAWildwater.com