Saturday, June 23, 2012 // Europeans, Zagreb

Zagrebs regatta course, Jarun, is a great course if it wasn’t for the water lilies. It shouldn’t be a surprise for anyone, but still it seems like it is a surprise for the organizers every year. If they got the right equipment it’s not rocket science to clean up the lake before the competition starts. It doesn’t seem like ECA (European Canoe Assosiation) takes this serious. My start on the championships was not the best, luggage and paddle didn’t arrive until 30min before semifinal on friday. It’s always a risk for this to happen when you travel the day before your first start, but with important race scheduled in August I want to stay as many days as possible home in full training. I had my footrest and racegear in the handluggage (learned from my wife:)), so all I needed was to borrow a paddle. Anyway, heat and semi wasn’t a big hit, but everything was great for the final. Did a good first 500m, terrible from 500-800m and OK last 200m. Over 4 sec to winner Max Hoff is a lot, but far from impossible. You don’t have to remember longer back than last year to understand why…. So who will win the Olympics? It’s actually anyones race this year and I wouldn’t say Europeans gave any good answers. Rene Holten Poulsen, Aleh Yurenhia and Adam Van Koeverden have all won a World Cup each and Max Hoff winning Europeans. Murray Stewart, Anders Gustafsson and Tim Brabants are also guys I wouldn’t write off. Time to start final preparation for London!!