November 28, 2009
 

Dear Wildwater Racers and Friends:

It's time to vote for the Wildwater Committee members who will serve for the 2010/2011 term. The first article in this newsletter includes the list of nominees, details about the election process and campaign statements from some of the nominees. I will be updating the article to include the campaign statements from the other moninees when I receive them. The deadline for voting is December 17th. This as a GREAT opportunity to renew your USACK membership so you can vote in the election and have your insurance covered for next year. You can renew your USACK membership online via the USACK website at https://member.usack.org/ or by contacting Gerald Babao at gerald@usack.org.

USA Wildwater is proud to be distributing $2500 in Performance Funding to our 2009 top producing athletes in international competition. This is a great program that rewards those athletes that work hard so that they race well in international competition. See the link to this article for more about this program and the athletes who met the preformance criteria.

The current 2009 Wildwater Rankings are now available on USAWildwater.com. Look for the link to the rankings in this e-Zine or in the lower right corner of the USA Wildwater home page. The races that are included in the rankings are noted in the 2009 Wildwater Calendar. Contact me if you have any questions or input concering the rankings.

The USACK Wildwater Committee (WWC) met on November 15th. The primary discussion at the meeting concerned the bids for the 2010 National Wildwater events (the U.S. Team Trials and the U.S. National Championships). See the minutes of the meeting for more details about which venues were selected. The announcement and preliminary information about the 2010 USACK Wildwater Senior Team Trials & Eastern Junior Team Trials is also included in this e-Zine. The next issue of the USAWildwater e-Zine will include announcements for the 2010 USACK Wildwater Western Junior Team Trials and the U.S. National Championships.

Two of the primary goals of USA Wildwater are to continue to grow participation in our sport and to help current and new wildwater athletes improve their skills. Training Camps and local competitions are key to our success in achieving these goals. The first training camp in 2010 is the "Chute the Hooch". It is scheduled for January 23-24 in the Atlanta, Georgia area. This is a great opportunity for current wildwater athletes and newcomers to learn and train with some very accomplished coaches.

Three Wildwater athletes (Tom Wier, Chris Norbury, and Jennie Goldberg) represented the U.S. at the Wildwater World Championships. Check out the links in this e-Zine for the results for all 6 races and the Final World Cup Ranking for 2009 and for the some videos of the races. Tom Wier and Chris Norbury also posted information about their adventures in Tasmania in their blogs. Tom's blog can be found at tomwier.wordpress.com and Chris's at boaterbloater.blogspot.com.

Finally, we have the initial press release for the 2010 Wildwater World Championships, an article by Roger Nott about the 41st Annual Southeastern Wildwater Championships held this fall and a link to a video from the 1992 Wildwater World Cup that was held on the Eagle River in Colorado.

Chuck Brabec
Editor & Webmaster, USAWildwater.com