The Alps pt. 1

Living in the Alps for a week now! Finally got the chance to take a shower and sit down to write something down. We don't know where to start anymore so we will tell our stories at random... Or maybe... let's try to do it chronologically (nice memory test).

Our first stop was the 'Pitzbach' in Austria, a nice steep class V river with not to many eddies to stop and scout. The rain of the past few days made it a nice level to paddle... So lots of fun!

Next on the menu was the worldcup in Augsburg. Unfortunately not for participating but for cheering for Mathieu Doby and Ingo Kriesinger, our fellow Belgian team paddlers. We also had the chance to test some new boat models. Only one thing to say... Phoenix II from Vajda does a pretty good job!!

It was really nice to meet up again with some 'old colleagues'. Beeing in the circuit again felt really nice and brought back the good memories, that's why we made ourselves the promise to be back on track next year!

After Augsburg we went back to the Alps, Italy this time! We found a really nice waterfall from about 10 meters on the internet and decided to go and style it. Arriving in the middle of the night we couldn't see a thing so we went to sleep and woke up with an amazing view of the mountains. After a good walk through the woods we found these epic falls.

First a small drop of 3m, only a few meters after this the big one. 10 meters of free fall to land in a nice little pool, to end a small beautiful 5 meter drop.

Monday we went to the Ötz. We had our breakfast on the 'Wellerbrücke' were the Adidas Sickline has taken place since many years. The waterlevel was really high so we decided not to run it. Instead we had a nice run on the middle Ötz.

Ok but McDonalds is closing now so no more free wifi. Off to 'Der Schweiz'!!

See yah ;)

Peeters/Sleebus - 2013...So far

Our 2013 year so far!!

You will see some C2 sessions, some creeking and El Arnowe's most epic moment of his 2013 year!

Enjoy!

First race of the Belgian season

A couple of weeks ago the first race of the Belgian season took place in 'Liège' -the only 'slalomcourse' we have in our little country- it's one of the three competitions we have in Belgium. Normally there are not a lot of participants to join us on the Ourthe but this year we were surprised how many showed up.

As it was a week after our selections in Goumois we were still in good shape and fired up to give it all! We must not forget to tell that in Belgium you can practice the racecourse a few hours before the start -what's not allowed in international competitions- but with the tought of gaining experience in every race we enter, we decided to 'trace' the course on the shore. Tracing is like studying the course and every movement you're going to make with your body and boat, but not studying like you do for exams or things like that.

The course was very difficult for C2, not that we don't like challenges. But sometimes it's a bit to far over the line. After all we managed to do well and at the end we came in first!  Meaning that we are one step closer to win the Belgian cup for this season. Talking about this cup, we did win it last year but more from that below...

Apart from the C2 we decided to race also in the K1 category, no worries we are not planning a comeback. Just something we like the do now and then as a reminder of the 'good old days'.

So about that Belgian cup, which is a ranking of the three competitions in Belgium awarded each first race of the year. We received this cup for our overall win in 2012 in the C2 category. It's our first win and we hope a lot more will come in the future!

What we been up to the last weeks? After Liège we continued training for the ICF world ranking in Ivrea. Beside that we are still editing our video which is not easy because there is not a lot of time when you train hard... Oh yeah there is also some schoolwork.

We will keep you informed about...euh everything, especially our video. So stay tuned and see ya!

Past weeks...busy weeks

How did our selections go? That question will be answered in this post. So we recommend you to read the whole article...

But first of all we do like to talk to you about our trainingcamp in Pau. A french city close to the mighty 'Pirineos' and the atlantic ocean, ... some call it paradise. We combined slalom training with some creeking, but because of the long during winter in Europe there wasn't much water on the rivers in the mountains. Still we managed to paddle 'Le gave de Brousset' in France and 'Rio Forcos' in Spain.
To reach the put in for the 'Rio Forcos' we had to drive 40 minutes on a small road to 'Bergau' which is a lovely little village and from there we had to hike with our boats for about 30 minutes but it was all worth it, what a beautiful river!

After this, we went to Anglet near the atlantic ocean to catch some waves, but the weather was terrible. After all we decided to give it a try and went into the water. We have to admit that learning how to surf in a storm is not the easiest way...

The week after that (so last weekend) we had our selection races in Goumois. It was really cold again like most of 2013. We managed to paddle well, just not enough to be selected for 2013. But we have made a lot of progression and reached a good level for paddling C2 only one year, so we are still on our schedule for Rio 2016!

Click here for a short video on the swiss news about the belgian selections at Goumois

What will come up next?

• End of june: creeking in the alps
• 13/07 - 14/07: Icf World ranking Ivrea
• September: trainingcamp Augsburg
• 2/11 - 3/11: Lee Vally, London

And for now, we will be in editing mode for our video... Dropping soon!