Drogheda Duo hit Costa Rican
Waves in 05
October 20th
to the 27th saw the bi-annual World Kayak Surf Championships hit
the warm pacific beaches of Costa Rica, Central America. Once again Ireland
was well represented and after their Gold medal performance in 2003 the
pressure was on to defend the title.
The town of Drogheda
once again came to the fore as two local men were once again selected to
represent their country in this, the pinnacle in Kayak Surfing. Kieran
Halton, a Civil Engineer from Drybridge and Chairman of the local kayak
club, Silver Bridge Kayak Club and Andy Wilson a Painter Decorator from
Millmount Abbey.
Kieran and Andy
played a key part in Irelands victory at the 2003 event held in Sligo and
were hoping for good performances this time round. Due to work commitments,
Andy was not due to travel to the event but at the last minute managed to
travel to the event and fill a vital slot in the Masters Class. Kieran being
the Irish Team Manager for the event traveled to the competition site a week
ahead of the scheduled event to acclimatize to the conditions and also to
study/analyze the conditions and the other competitors as they trained
daily.
The water temperature
was about 26 deg C, the air temperature in the 30’s with humidity in the
80’s making training and competing quite difficult. It was a necessity to
keep a watch full eye on the intake of fluids as dehydration could be a
serious barrier.
As the week prior to
the event unfolded it became very clear that the standard of Kayak Surfing
had risen dramatically since the Worlds in 2003 and we were going to have to
pull out all the stops to regain the team title.
The competition was
broken down into two events, the Team Event and the Individual Event. In the
Individual event, Kieran competed in the Senior Men’ International Class,
while Andy entered in the Senior Men’ International Class and Master’
International Class (40 years and over). With the first competitors of the
days surfing on the water at 06:30am, it was going to be a tough week ahead.
The competition was
close in the Master’ I.C. in which Andy reached the Semi-finals. The Senior
Men’ I.C. was an extremely tough class with numerous competitors coming from
a professionally sponsored back ground. “The heats were very intense and
competitive and I had a good start, with a first and second place in my
first two heats” and after this it just got tougher, but managed to battle
through the field to reach the semi-finals, Kieran says. Unfortunately I
very narrowly missed out on the finals only to be just pipped at the post by
James Hawker from the UK, who carried on, to win the event. The final
results have not been posted yet but reaching the semi’s and finishing in
the top 8 in the world is a result I am quite happy with.
With the Individual
Event over it was now time to concentrate on the Team Event. Day one and day
two of the Team Event would see four teams emerge from the total of ten
teams to enter the event and progress to the finals. It was an extremely
close run contest and Ireland after a strong push during the second day just
managed to make it through to the final four to join U.S.A. West, U.S.A.
East and Jersey in the finals.
“We were extremely
delighted to be in the final four as our performance over the first two days
wasn’t quite as good as I would have hoped”, says Kieran. The night before
finals day I called a team meeting in which we viewed video footage from the
previous day’ competition and discussed what we needed to do on finals day.
It was quite clear we were going to have to do something special and that
evening a very motivated Team Ireland hit the beds early in a bid to get a
good nights sleep.
On the last day of
the event each team new it was going to be tough and would have to keep
focused if they were to have any chance of coming home with the trophy. Team
Ireland produced some spectacular performances with Andy finishing strong in
his heat to keep the Irish point tally rising and Kieran put in an
inspirational effort in the first heat of the day finishing second. In the
end it just wasn’t enough and Team Ireland finished second overall just
behind U.S.A. (West) in the Team Event of the World Kayak Surf
Championships.
It was a wonderful
performance from the Irish, with some outstanding performances from the
ladies and juniors. Coming back from 4th to 2nd on the
last day of the event was a huge bonus and purely down to a Team effort. The
results of the team event were as follows: U.S.A. (West), Ireland, U.S.A.
(East) and Jersey.
Kieran would like to
sincerely thank the following people, for their help and generosity:
Welcome
to Silver Bridge Kayak Club 
