The 2018 ICF Wildwater World Championships kick off in Switzerland tonight with Australian Canoeing represented with a team of five athletes. The World Championships will take place on the Muota river at Muotathal in the Canton Schwyz in central Switzerland from May 31 to June 3, 2018.
More than 300 athletes from over 30 countries will be contesting the first World Canoeing Championships to be staged in Switzerland since 1973.
Australia’s Alex McIntyre (NSW) and Rob McIntyre (NSW), Kaylen Bassett (VIC), Genie Collin (WA) and Dita Phal (VIC) have been preparing on the Muota River in the Swiss Alps near Lake Lucerne over the last few days with racing starting today from 11:00 a.m. local time, i.e. 19:00 AEST.
The competition promises to be a physically demanding event on high levels of fast-flowing water and a course that is set to test athletes’ technique and speed to the limits.
“The river has been somewhat lower and variable requiring technical paddling. We also had some overnight rain over the last couple days and a sunny morning producing good snow melt so the team experienced a great challenging high level of 70 cubic metres as they went through their paces during training a couple of days ago. The water in the river is changing every day, which makes it challenging,” Team Manager Peter McIntyre said about the conditions.
There will be two types of races, classic and sprint. Classic course races last between 10-15 minutes and run over approx. 4.4km, the sprint distance of 400 metres can be completed in less than a minute.
Racing will kick-off with the classic individual race on Thursday, 31 May with team events following on Friday, 1 June 2018. Saturday and Sunday will see the heats and finals for the sprint races.
Racing will be live streamed on http://www.canoeicf.com
For more information around the event see here: http://www.wm-muota2018.ch/en/home
Results can be followed here: http://www.wm-muota2018.ch/en/results-news/
Australian Canoeing 2018 Wildwater Team
Men’s Kayak
Kaylen Bassett (VIC)
Alex McIntyre (NSW)
Robert McIntyre (NSW)
Women’s Kayak
Georgina Collin (WA)
Dita Pahl (VIC)
Race Times on day 1 of competition (Thursday, 31 May 2018)
Live streaming commences at 11:00 Swiss time, i.e. 19:00 AEST
Athlete start times
- Dita Pahl. 7.13pm AEST Bib No. 13
- Georgina Collin 7.14pm AEST Bib No. 14.
- Kaylen Bassett 8.17pm AEST Bib No. 73
- Alex McIntyre 8.41pm AEST Bib No 97
- Robert McIntyre 8.55pm AEST Bib No. 111
Follow the event on social media:
Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/wmmuota2018/
Twitter feed: https://twitter.com/Muotakanuwm (@muotakanuwm)
Follow the Australian team here:
Facebook: www.facebook.com/australiancanoeing
Instagram: www.instagram.com/auscanoe
Twitter: www.twitter.com/auscanoe
