Slovakia’s Open Women heading to UAE

5 September 2016

This team has been competing for many years and have a host of interviews by us to go with their many medals. (Slovakia – white paddles of mistral, Women’s Euro R4 Champs, Revamped Mistral Women’s team)

We chat to Júlia Pevlková about the up coming WRC 2016.

Now that you are officially registered, Julia, who is in your team for the WRC in UAE?

“Our team is almost the same as for last year’s WRC R6 in Indonesia. Bowmen Monika Kebísková and Júlia Pevlková, on the back Veronika Kvetáková and Zuzana Čunderlíková with alternate Andrea Zererová, who is also our supporter for necessary team tasks. In this exact composition we haven’t paddled at any WRC, so are we very much looking forward to this first time.”

You missed ERC 2016, how do you think this break will affect you?

It will be interesting for us as to how we’re going to be at this year’s WRC. It’s getting harder and harder as our competitors are working really hard. You could see it in the runs and results of the Sprint and Head to Head races as to how tight the competition is. We made a small break due to our other duties as we had to save our days of vacation for family and WRC only, therefore, we were unable to travel to Euro Champs in Tacen, Slovenia. We did our training though, but not as intensely as it should be before a big competition like this. Since May, we started to train on white water and also flat water, we attended domestic races and one competition in the Czech Republic. In early September, our joint training will rapidly increase and we believe that with our long experience we can expect good races and results. We are looking forward to our team training also with our Master’s Women Team – Mistral Ladies, who step up this season and have improved their technique a lot.”

At WRC R4 2014 your weaker result in the Slalom cost you the first place overall, you finished third Overall. First in Downriver and Sprint, third in H2H, but that Slalom…. what was the reason for such poor results?

“Our weaker result in Slalom in Brazil was caused by insufficient opportunities for training on the course, due to lack of water and no opportunity to investigate the course by tracking other teams. We need to examine the course and spend enough time on the water, this we lacked in Brazil. We made a mistake at the crossing, where we put too much power into strokes and we went through an upstream gate downstream. We saw it coming as we concentrated too much on this gate, which some of the teams didn’t get into, so we paddled more than would be necessary. ☺ What we regret more is Head to Head Race where we lost a fight for the finals with Japan. We were clearly in a lead by two boats but we led out from our current track, lost a fight and didn’t get to the finals. Though we did great in Brazil.

As the only women’s team in the world who have won each discipline, despite that we’ve never won Overall, (Slalom R4 in 2010, Head to Head in 2010, Sprint R4 in 2014, Downriver R4 in 2014) and that ‘s what we value the most.”

All of you are moms, except for one of you. How do you balance the obligations of training and families?

“Our husbands, partners and families are those who are helping us the most. Without them it wouldn’t be possible to train. In addition to training and families we have our full-time jobs. Our training and workouts always start after 5 pm and we train 2-3 times a week together. Also our children attend a lot of school sport activities and therefore our closest family are those who help us in logistics and we are able to go for a training. It happens sometimes that we take our children on training with us to look at the white water, or they have a picnic by the water and play together. Also we have to thank our partners: Husky, insurance company Allianz, and all good friends who are supporting us.”

Brazil was warm as will be the UAE, both exotic places … what is it that you would like to experience in the UAE?

“We are excited by the place and also by the fact that the races are on artificial course. We prefer rivers, but in Bratislava we train on an artificial course, very similar to the one in Al Ain. The heat might be challenging for us as our climate in Slovakia is around 25-30 degrees during summer. We will spend some days after the race by travelling in the Emirates and then hurry back home to our work and families.”

Sponsors to thank?

“We would like to thank our sponsors: outdoor equipment – Husky, Imunoglukan, Respect, 3fvision, aac tour – rafting.sk, Compava and the link for our website is www.raftmistral.sk”