The Rafting Festival in the Czech Republic begins on the 23rd August with the youth and master categories in Ceske Budejovice on the Artificial Slalom Course. An interesting youth team that will be there is the Slovenian woman’s team. As with most teams coming to the Youth WRC they do not have great results from the past because they are beginning their participation in the Youth WRC. But …..

After nearly two decades of their presence in the rafting world, Slovenia, a country which dominated in early international raft races and has had good success since, will send their first female team to a big competition. Rafting team “Mrzla uoda” starts the history for female Slovenian rafting teams on the world scene, paving the way for others.

From this year they started serious work with their coach, Luka Spilar, especially focusing on the R4. Their realistic captain, Marija Pranjic, spoke to us about this.

Y&M WRC artificial course in Ceske Budejovice. Photo by Jan Homolka Photography

How often do you train?

“We have training five times weekly; means 2 times on the river “Rijeka” in the neighbourhood, which is pretty good for form; 2 times conditional training, and once on the wild water on the river “Soca”- for which we rafters know that is fantastic for training.”

Do you feel the pressure of the successes of your men’s teams in the world of rafting?

“Not really, because our success is not in the foreground.”

In the photographs you can see the course for Youth WRC 2012 , how does it look to you?

” We saw the course and work is quite demanding!”

What do you expect from the Youth WRC?

“From YWRC we don’t expect nothing yet, because we do not know what the  level of training of others is. In our country we have never had a real women’s competition and it is very difficult to judge how much we can achieve.”

The Slovenian rafting school is great and we will surely follow their performance in this, their first big competition.

Written by Nada