Last weekend Botosani city in northern Romania hosted it`s first Euro Cup together with a kayaking race on the only artificial course in this part of Europe.
The fully catered event (competitors were offered free accommodation, meals and airport transfers) enjoyed the presence of four nations represented by 12 rafting teams and 19 kayakers racing in Sprint, H2H, Slalom, Downriver and respectively Kayak Slalom and Boater X.
The rafting disciplines were dominated by the Czech team Letgun who finished with a clean sweep of trophies, scoring the highest in each discipline and also managing a beautiful zero penalties slalom run.
Second overall came the UK team Phoenix which`s experience on artificial courses showed up nicely.
Third overall is the “romanian tiger” team, Young Spirit which got the bronze medal in Sprint this year at the world championship in Bosnia.
Ladies teams ranking was subtracted from the general one as they were only two.
Vointa Fete Team finished 2nd after a much more experienced MOE Ladies Team.
Kayak competitions put up a lot of action with the inevitable rolls and swims, especially during the Boater X heats where 2 or 3 kayakers were racing each other in eliminatory runs; safety teams were happy to work and did it with joy, claiming that “it is fun to be in a safety team which gets some real action, unlike usually in our rafting events” :D
Kayak Slalom podium pictures Olar Matteo in 1st place, Patrick Kozma 2nd and Dan Corodan in 3rd place.
Boater X, after a lot of hard work finished with Patrick Kozma 1st, Luca Batori 2nd, Vlad Damian 3rd.
Festive dinner and party lasted until a little after 4 am, for the joy of all participants and maybe slowing down some teams in Sunday`s Downriver.
The Downriver consisted in 3 laps of the channel preceded by a short sprint over the lake.
Heats of 4 teams battled each other and finished pretty exhausted, as the competitors say; the effort of carrying the boats out of the water and over the 150 meters long island proved quite a challenge.
Cornisa AquaPark is a widespread facility which, besides the artificial river, includes indoor/outdoor swimming pools and toboggans, wellness area, a skate ring, climbing wall and various sports fields as well as a theatre and meeting areas.
Local authorities with the support of Romanian Professional Rafting Association (APR) are aiming high, at bidding for hosting Euro Championship in the very next future.
For that reason teams are invited to visit us and practice throughout the year (price of living and river access have unbeatable prices, too).
Keep rafting!
