Ben Fouhy World Champion K1 1000m Kayaking New Zealand

I have just arrived home and I feel glad to be home. It has been nearly 7 weeks and it looks like I have some gardening and lawn mowing to catch up on! I will have the time as I am resting for the next few weeks before I start training in October for the Beijing Olympics. Sorry about the lack of updates while I was away, I had some computer issues so now I am doing 3 or 4 in one go!

The racing at the Beijing test regatta went well for me. I was pleased to paddle better than I did in Germany. The main goal for the regatta was a test event for the everybody from Officials and Volunteers to Athletes to do a rehearsal in a way to make sure everything flows as it should. I was really pleased I made the effort to go as it was tempting to go straight home after Duisburg. One of the first days in Beijing I wanted to go home as the air was not too good but luckily it improved dramatically over the week and I had no problem at all racing in it by the weekend. Steve Ferguson and I raced K2 also to do as many events as we could to put more pressure on the body and we felt we had no problems doing our best for where we were at. Overall I felt really comfortable competing in Beijing, I really enjoyed the food, really good accommodation although I now know a bit more about fixing toilet systems.. and the course was the best I have raced on.

Below myself with World Champion Tim Brabants in the middle with Athens Olympic Champion Eirik Veras Larsen to the right.

Below we are in the last one hundred meters to the finish. I still thought I was in with a good chance here. But Tim was so strong and had it all under control!

At this regatta thanks to Greg Barton and the guys at Epic I was able to paddle the new Legacy K1. An impressive boat. I felt it was a very smooth boat with great boat run and good acceleration. Very solid foot rest with an adjustable block to give support to prevent flexing.

We took the opportunity to do some sight seeing. Below is myself with Steve Ferg and Chris Bullen from the New Zealand Academy of Sport on the Great Wall. It was really good to have Chris come up to Beijing to work with us to make sure our planning for next years Olympics is the very best it can be.

The Chinese are World renowned for their very competitive low cost manufacturing but it turns out they are world leaders in building walls as demonstrated here.

To get down from the wall back to the car park we took the luge! This was good fun. Steve was reluctant to let go at first but we managed to talk him round… turns out he is a natural!

Well we made it through Korea better off for the experience. The Korean paddlers were fantastic hosts. We had a great time there, only paddled twice but they were solid paddles in a big brown river with the noisiest wild life on the banks, not so much animals but very loud insects, kind of what I would imagine the Amazon could be similar to… we didnt see anything to concern us but I know I was keen to stay in my boat.

Overall a great trip and I think we were happy to sit on chairs again after 4 days of sitting on the floor.

We are now in Korea looking at different training options for next year. We are currently only 5km from the border of North Korea.

So far it has been an enjoyable experience with the Korean kayak paddlers being great hosts. This is my first proper trip to Asia and we definitely feel like we are somewhere different. The obvious things being everything is written in Korean and customs like removing your shoes before sitting on a mat for meals.

We’ve only been here 24hrs, but so far I have enjoyed the food — lots of rice and fresh vegetables.

This morning we paddled on the river for an hour and a half. It was very warm and quite surreal paddling on such a big river surrounded by mountains.

BTW: Korean keyboards are tricky to type on.

Steve, Grant (our team manager) and myself are now on our way to Asia to get ready for the pre Olympic test regatta in Beijing next week. It’s been a long couple of days driving our team van and boat trailor from Duisburg to Racice. Our van doesn’t like trailors much and sometimes only holding 60kph on the uphills.

Yesterday I did a solid training session like I did before Athens Olympics on the same course in Racice. I am totally sure now I am a better paddler than I have ever been. The reality is the level has really gone up and I am going to have to get a lot better if I hope to do well in Beijing next year.

Today we had the final for the K1 1000. I came 5th in the World which sounds good but I am disappointed!

I can’t explain why I didn’t do better. I have struggled a lot this year with my training culminating in a shocker at World Cup 2 in Hungary. I persevered to World Cup 3 in France where I managed to get a silver medal. I arrived home with a chest infection and groveled for 3 weeks, had an ok week of training then left for Europe where training picked up really well with the 3.25 I did in Mechelen last week. Being only my second time trial I don’t think I was overdoing it and I felt I could have knocked at least another second or more off it if it was a serious race.

The regatta felt good for me, I was happy to win my semi with some gas in the tank. Today I felt good warming up but in the race I seemed to lose pace early on and not be able to recover the ground. I am puzzled.

Now we are off to Asia to look around for some training locations then we race the Beijing test regatta in two weeks. Maybe I can take a cheap shot at the new World Champ after he has been celebrating. Congratulations Tim! and also to the guys who qualified! Mission number 1 was to qualify!

Also on the positive side it was great to be able to race in front of such an inspired crowd. The atmosphere was fantastic, not something a paddler gets to experience on my side of the world. The regatta was sold out and we had crowds of people trying to get a glimps of the action through the fences!

Below is a quick photo I took of the grandstands as everybody was packing up and leaving.

Today we had heats and semis for the 1000m events. A good day for the mens team with Steve Ferguson and Mike Walker progressing through to the A finals of the K2. I was pleased to win my semi final and also progress through to the final which will be held on Saturday afternoon at 2.10 central European time.

I am now taking some time out to play my guitar after a massage and treatment from Glenn our Osteopath.

Tomorrow I dont have any racing so I will enjoy a small sleep in and do just one training session to prepare the body for what lies ahead!

Tomorrow is the first day of the World Championships for 2007.

By this time tomorrow night I should have a good feel for how things are going as we have heats and semi finals tomorrow with the finals on Saturday.

The last few weeks of training have been really good with a 3.25 in training in Mechelen last week. This is the fastest time I have done in training by 6 seconds so hopefully it is not a case of to much to soon! And I can step up for the racing when it counts.

The website address is below:
www.Kanuwm.de

There is a lot of activity building down at the course with TV networks setting up so there is going to be great coverage. They have set up a 1 kilometre camera rail which is good because it means no camera boat on the water creating waves.

Overall the team is in good shape and I think everybody is anxious to start racing.