by Connie Tabbert
Editor
FORESTERS FALLS — Joel Kowalski is 10th in the world of extreme kayaking.
That’s where he finished at the Adidas Sickline Extreme Kayak World Championships held on the Wellerbrucke Rapids in Austria’s Otztal Valley on Oct. 3 and 4. The nearest town is Innsbruck, Austria.
Sitting in his office at Wilderness Tours, which is where he works when not competing, and is also owned by his parents Sue and Joe Kowalski, Joel recalled the event.
“It was a pretty finish,” he said. “I finished 10th in the world.”
Extreme kayaking is unque, because it “really brings together a wider range of disciplines.”
There were many Olympians competing, so the competition was top notch and tough, Joel said.
But, Joel wasn’t the only Wilderness Tours paddler at the world event. Friend Nick Troutman, who now lives in Tennessee but grew up in Beachburg, competed as did his wife Emily Jackson-Troutman and friends Eric and Dane Jackson. While they are from the United States, this family has been coming to Wilderness Tours for many years. Eric is the father of Emily and Dane. The event was a family affair, as Emily and Nick’s year-old son Tucker was also there as was Eric’s wife Kristine, who watched Tucker, and Joel’s parents, Joe and Sue. There was also one other Canadian competing, Ben Hayward, who is on the men’s national slalom team from Edmonton.
Joel said it’s not unusual for Tucker to travel with his parents, because that’s how Emily was raised.
“They balance parenthood and kayaking very well,” he said. “Their kid comes everywhere.”
Joel and Nick arrived a week prior to the event so they could train together. They had opportunity to watch as other paddlers went down the course and then when they went down, they used their gopro cameras atop their helmets so they could watch what they were doing themselves and then critique what they should and shouldn’t do while competing.
“You have to be extremely detailed on the run,” he said. “You can make up fractions of seconds by taking the best route. You also have to keep from losing fractions of sections, which means keeping the boat from getting splashed on or taking a wave to the chest.”
Joel noted paddlers of this calibre will finish quite close to each other. If you take a wave to the chest or roll your boat, you know you’re not going to make it onto the podium, he explained.
The water is quite cold because it’s sourced by glaciers, he explained. So, on warmer days the water can be much higher.
“We definitely recognized a spike in the water in the afternoons,” he said. “It’s extremely cold, about -5 Celsius. It’s glacial.”
The paddlers wear dry suits, which means the body is completely enclosed, however, the face and hands are bare.
On day one, which was the qualifier for the final round, there were 130 men vying for the top 48 positions. Each competitor had two runs and both times were combined. The top 48 moved on to the final round.
The qualifier was on the lower part of the river and was just under 500 metres long.
“You’re weaving through rapids and going down what would be similar to a staircase,” Joel explained.
The challenge is to pick the fastest line, he said. You want a fast paddle and you have to pick the fastest course. On this day, Joel finished 26 with Nick right behind him. Dane finished in fourth and Eric in 29th.
“We were only separated by 18/100th of a second,” Joel said. “It was a very tight race.”
On Saturday, the final will end where the qualifier started the day before.
“It’s about 200m, but it’s shorter and steeper,” Joel explained.
For the first part of the final, each competitor was partnered. Of those two, the winner would go onto the super finish, which would be whittled down to 15 competitors.
Joel defeated his competitor while Nick wasn’t so lucky. He was defeated by an Olympian. Dane and Eric were partnered up and it was son Dane defeating his father Eric.
“Dane and I made it through to the super finals,” Joel said. “This is one of the most challenging events of the entire year.”
In the super final, the paddlers go in reverse order – competitor with the slowest time will go first and the competitor with the fastest time would be the last to paddle.
Joel went second and remained in first place for a while, but he knew it wouldn’t be a time that would get him onto the podium. At race’s end, Dane was 5th and Joel was 10th.
In the women’s division, of which there were 15 competitors, they each had two runs and the times were combined to determine the winner, Joel said. Emily was fourth.
“Her runs were fast, but she had a tough start on both races,” he said.
But the racing season isn’t over, Joel said. The next extreme kayaking event is the Green Race in North Carolina on Nov.1.
Joel said there are four big extreme kayraces for him each year, maybe five if he attends them all. There is the Whitewater Grand Prix, which is a multi-stage event that’s in Ontario and Quebec; the Ottawa XL, which Wilderness Tours hosts, the Adidas Sick Line Extreme Kayak, the Green Race in North Carolina and then finishing the racing season at the Alseseca Race in Mexico.
However, there are also the freestyle competitions he participates in as well.
“Freestyle is what I’m strongest in,” he said.
When not competing, Joel works at various jobs at Wilderness Tours, from office work in the winter, such as preparing promotional materials, which includes the web site, to teaching the sport of kayak in the summer, as well as being a rafting guide.
But, for the next few months, there is a major focus for Joel, and that’s the 2015 Freestyle World Championships, which will be hosted by Wilderness Tours.
“Nick and I are the hometown team,” he said. “That’s our forte, for both Nick and I.”
While there are many kayak events between now the championships at WT, Joel said, “We have one big goal and that’s the world’s here next year.”
The event is Aug. 30 to Sept. 5 and there will be about 250 male and female competitors, he said.
Joel said when the International Canoe Federation reviewed the bids it received for the 2015 event, they weren’t really excited about any of them. They contacted his dad to see if he would put together a bid, since they had hosted it previously in 2007 and 1997.
“We submitted and they accepted it,” he said. “We are the only river to host the world’s event three times.”
Each country will now select a team to compete at Wilderness Tours next year, Joel said. This past August, the Canadian team was chosen and all are local guys, he said.(See list below)
Joel isn’t surprised the team is made up of those who learned the sport of kayaking while on the Ottawa River.
“The Ottawa River has put out more top kayakers than any other river,” he said. “If you can get into the sport here, you have the opportunity to go far.”
CANADIAN TEAM MEMBERS
Senior Men’s K1
Nick Troutman (Beachburg, ON)
Devyn Scott (Pakenham, ON)
Joel Kowalski (Beachburg, ON)
Kalob Grady (Westmeath, ON)
Patrick Camblin (Arnprior, ON)
Senior Women’s K1
Alex Maggs (Fergus, ON)
Katie Kowalski (Beachburg, ON)
Rae Boratto (Beachburg, ON)
Junior Men’s K1
Quinton Kenedy (Pembroke, ON)
Kalem Kenedy (Pembroke, ON)
Andrew Oxley (Montréal, ON)
Junior Women’s K1
Claire Parrot (Waterloo, ON)
Emily Zwanenburg (Cornwall, ON)
Men’s C1
Vincent Dupont (Verdun, ON)
Chris McDermott (Beachburg, ON)
Zachary Zwanenburg (Cornwall, ON)
Open C1
Andrew Hill (Cobden, ON)
Matt Curcarro (Renfrew, ON)
Men’s Squirt Boat
Lars Romeskie (Beachburg, ON)
Matt Hamilton (Foresters Falls, ON)
Marc Richard (Dartmouth, NS)
Women’s Squirt Boat
Shaunna Kent (Petawawa, ON)
