Costa Rica has a long tradition in the sport of rafting having organised a Project Raft and two World Rafting Championships (WRC). Their athletes have brought medals home from around the world, and the best indication that they have a good future is looking at the youth which every year is growing up and slowly building themselves a career. Some of them form the young U19 men’s team and they will be representing their country at the WRC competition in the UAE later this month.
That honour goes to Johan Alexander Segura – Captain, Yashin Fonseca, Ethan Daniel Segura, Frandel Coto, Enrique Segura with Coach Alex Segura. And we spoke to Johan about the team.
Johan, introduce us to your team.
“The Pejibaye Rafting Team members are students of Pejibaye Environmental High School, aged between 14 & 17 years old, competing for the national title for the past two years, but could not attend WRC in Indonesia for lack of economic resources. So this will be our first international race. It has been very hard to obtain funds to attend it, however we are working hard to achieve it.”
It is a great honour to represent your country at a world championship, but what does it mean for you to go to the WRC?
“Hopefully it will be a very important competition for the team and help us to improve and develop as athletes of the sport of rafting.”
Experience from the WRC will help you greatly, also to become familiar with the techniques and tactics of teams across the world. So how does your team prepare for the competition?
“We have been training hard the last few months and we hope to do our best to represent Costa Rica with honour and pride for our family and the people who are helping to make this project a reality.
We train on the Pejibaye River, which bears the same name of the town in which we live, so the team’s name.
We combine training with studies, so go to the river at 5am before attending lessons, or afternoons after school at 4.30pm”
Which discipline does your team like the most?
“Our team likes every discipline but mostly Slalom”
Is there something particular you want to see and experience in the UAE?
“We really want to experience UEA culture, it will be interesting to know more about it!”
Sponsors that you want to thank?
“We want to thank our families and friends for supporting us in this process, they are working really hard in order to achieve our participation in WRC 2016.. We also want to thank our Sponsor Cable Costa who have helped make it possible for us to participate this year, Exploradores Outdoors, Restaurante Bocadito del Cielo, Costa Rican Rafting Federation, and our coach Alex Segura.”
Good luck to you and your team, Johan, we look forward to watching you at the WRC.
Brasil, Russia, Germany, Argentina, Turkey, Italy and Slovakia are the teams with which they will be intersecting paddles. The experience that they will gather and the friends that they will acquire are an invaluable part of this competition. They are very lucky to have an opportunity like this. We are very pleased to have them among us, and we wish them a good stroke, a good time in the UAE and many, many years of paddling.