“Miyoshi City, Tokushima is the gateway to the Yoshino river… home of Japan’s biggest and best white-water rafting. The abundance of crystal clear water combined with amazing scenery and the powerful, challenging rapids of the Oboke and Koboke sections all add up to an ideal setting for race rafting.” – and it was. This was the introduction on Japan’s WRC website – and we can add that the entire ambience, with mountains covered in forest, and the really beautiful Yoshino River flowing through, takes the breath away.
Volunteers
Many federations were introduced into new categories, and it was Mongolia’s first time competing at the WRC competition. There were entire families competing in different categories! And then there was the new generation coming through: “Highlight of my day today … was witnessing the U/19 Slalom medal ceremony, with Mark Treston and Paul Eame’s daughters receiving their medals, one for Team Japan one for Team NZ … and standing beside two very proud fathers and ex-Tully River raft guides … brought a tear to the eye!” – Graham Maifredi.
Again, we saw flying rafts, an excellent zip-line system to get the rafts from the bottom of the Sprint, H2H and Slalom courses, back to the top, the best solution in the complex terrain.
Safety team
Brasil Open Men equalled two records at this event – they are the World Champions for the fifth year in a row, the last time this was done was when Slovenia’s Bober team won the first 3 Camel White Water Challenge events and then the first 2 IRF WRC events. And they did it by winning all the disciplines, achieving 1000 points for Overall – the last time we saw this in the Open Men’s category was in 1997 at the CWWC, also by team Bober! It has taken 20 years to equal that record and maybe this one is better as in 1997 it was only 3 disciplines, now it is 4! Japan’s Master Men also achieved the magical 1000 at this event – welcome to the club of 1000 points!!!
The timing of the event was excellent – with a Typhoon going past 2 weeks before and another 2 weeks after we were quite lucky! These pictures show the river in flood after the event – the road is the one where teams launched for Sprint, H2H and O/M Downriver.
Holding the 2017 WRC in Japan on the Yoshino River was a long time dream for four best friends – Taku Ikeda, Daigo Shibata, Teru Hiko and Mark Treston. They all met on the river about 16 years ago and have been best friends since. Taku and Daigo raced in the same team from 2004 to 2009 where they achieved 10th in 2005, 3rd in 2007, and 2nd in 2009! Since then Daigo has been working as the Japan Race Rafting Association director and has been instrumental in the running of the Japanese championships and other events which set him up as Race Director for the WRC. Taku took on the role of Event Director, Teru was Safety Director and Mark was handling the background logistics for all sorts of aspects. A great team that pulled together a great dream!
A competition is the ultimate product of huge amounts of hard work, behind which is the great work of the team of 4 above and their teams under them, the support of the state and sponsors, volunteers, judges …. we thank you all!!
This story does not end here, it continues to Argentina 2018, Australia 2019… See you there!
