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TEVA eXtreme Mountain Games Italy

TEVA eXtreme Mountain Games, May 7-9 2004, Val Sesia, Italy

TEVA eXtreme Mountain Games

In Northern Italy, just west of Milano in the mighty Piemonte lays a idyllic and ancient valley called Val Sesia. The River Sesia and all its tributaries, forked up into different arms, offer some of the sweetest and steepest to be found in Central Europe. Spring after spring this magical place attracts kayakers to set their feet on this holy land with its steep slides, big drops, beautiful technical whitewater, fine foods and its roman flair.

The Event was again organized by "Old-Man- River" Arnd Schäftlein , Italian legend Francesco Salvato and their fellow volunteers. It was the 4th edition and since the other years some of the world's best paddlers showed up at this invitational event, there was no difference this year.

In 2004, the Mountain Games were spiced up with a new team event down the famous Egua-river, as well as the Extreme Slalom, Boater-X and a Extreme Race around the ancient town of Rassa. Arnd invited again a lot of friends this year as "nation-teams" which consisted of generally 3 athletes from each country. Some of finest paddlers from Italy, Germany, England, Ireland, the Netherlands, France, Switzerland, Norway, New Zealand, South Africa and the USA made their journey to thursdays late evening meeting.

Team Event

The event kicked off on friday with the team event on the mighty Egua, which drops over a distance of 1,5 km over 150 meters down the valley. It's clean drops, technical rapids and wicked slides made this river to a classic. The run starts 100 meter long bobsled-course-styled channel with a final 5 meter auto-boof drop into a big pool. After that, depending on the water level, the river opens up again and slams some quite bony rapids on you. A hundred meters further down the lines turn clearer and you find yourself in a massive creek parc with funky slides, nice drops and technical rapids. The river drops easily 20- 30 meters on a very short stretch, before it opens up again and you can, in normal case, have a chat with your buddies or in our situation get those big, strong arms out and squeeze the second last bit of strength out of your biceps. Big right turn, and there you just before the final 5 beautiful drops, which ask for some bits of concentration to not miss the boof or fuck up the line.

The race course is the original length of the whole run, on which "new people" can easily spend 2-3hours if they scout everything. Time was taken after the last paddler of the team crossed the finish line. Only rule was that the team was not "stretched-out" to much, so that paddlers could keep eye-contact and help each other in case of a unintended carnage scenario. It was a fun competition, good to watch as the teams hucked their way down the course. Expedition-legend Dave Manby couldn't be convinced to start for Team RSA consisting of Corran Addison and Steve Fisher, but unfortunately lacking another team mate. More luck had New Zealand's Mikey Abbot and Andy O'Connell that Swiss Phil Hausammann just returned from New Zealand to enter their team race. All teams fought hard and had a really good time out there, enjoying the first rays of sun after the heavy rain and snowfalls from the last days. The top three were:

  1. USA (Tao Berman, Pat Keller, Tommy Hilleke)
  2. United Kingdom ( Allan Ellard, Andy Phillips, Cheesy Roberston)
  3. Switzerland (Toro Roggenmoser, Ralph Rhein, Simon Hirter)
    followed by Germany, Netherlands, Italy, Italy, France, Ireland and New Zealand.

Extreme Slalom & Boater-X

Extreme Slalom

The results of the 3 remaining events were taken together to elect the overall winner of this event. It started off on saturday morning with the Extreme Slalom. The river divas had the pleasure to run the course first, which was about 200 meters long with 3 slides in it. It had 7 gates hung up on key points which had to be touched with a hand.

Top Ten Men:

  1. Pat Keller (USA/Dagger Nomad)
  2. Steve Fisher (RSA/Riot "Sniper")
  3. Tao Berman (USA/Dagger Nomad)
  4. Mikey Abbott (NZ/Pyranha H3)
  5. Rene Boom (NL/Dagger Nomad)
  6. Allan Ellard (GB/Pyranha H3)
  7. Francesco Salvato (I/ Dagger Nomad)
  8. Marco Merini (I/ Rainbow Zulu)
  9. Simon Hirter (SUI/ Dagger Nomad)
  10. Phil Hausammann (SUI/ Robson Charger)

Top Five Ladies:

  1. Shannon Carroll (USA/ Pyranha H3)
  2. Lilli Winter (GER/ Bliss Stick Huka)
  3. Mariann Saether (N/Dagger Nomad)
  4. Polly Green (USA/ Pyranha H3)
  5. Deb Pinniger (GB/ Wavesport Diesel)

Boater-X

The Boater-X was held on the same section, which proved itself as a superb battlefield for this kind of competition. A fast start was the key for a good position for the first big slide, but the heats got generally mixed up on their way down. The river offered lots of different lines which made the whole competition really exciting to watch. The finish line was a banner hanging on a rock in the big bottom-eddy, and many heats got decided in these last few meters. Surprises were given, as some race-specialists were already kicked out in the second round, but left some others with a big chance for a good position. The places in the final men's heat were taken by Cheesy Roberston, Tao Berman, Francesco Salvato and Tommy Hilleke. Tao managed to lead after the second drop, closely followed by Cheesy. Tao went straight into the final eddy - too straight! He got stopped by a rock, while Cheesy passed him and had a victorious and happy grin on his face.

In the ladies' heat there were 5 princesses fighting it out. Mariann Saether had a good start and was well ahead of the pack in the first drop but had some trouble at the bottom and was overtaken. Shannon Carroll paddled to her second victory, which left her some space in the ranking.

Top Four Men:

  1. Cheesy Robertson (GB)
  2. Tao Berman (USA)
  3. Tommy Hilleke (USA/ Liquid logic GUS)
  4. Francesco Salvato (I/ Dagger Nomad)

Top Five Ladies

  1. Shannon Carroll (USA)
  2. Deb Pinniger (GB)
  3. Mariann Saether (N)
  4. Lilli WInter (GER)
  5. Ally Collet (GB/ Pyranha H3)

The saturday evening party was organized in a fine Italian restaurant, which had a discotheque just downstairs. After a nice dinner with fine red wine, most people didn't care that much about next day's race and enjoyed themselves on the dance floor until early morning.

Extreme race

The early sunday morning saw lots of paddlers with their sunglasses on. The big day of the prestigious X-race has arrived, and would also set a winner for the general win. The race course was just above the town Rassa, on the mighty Gronda. It was selective, having some flat bits as well besides nice, technical drops. This river is also a classic in the Sesia area, and flows right into the beautiful town of Rassa. After some practice runs and more importantly a solid breakfast the event kicked off just before lunchtime.

Again the visitors from over the big pond took the top positions.

Top Ten Men:

  1. Pat Keller (USA)
  2. Tao Berman (USA)
  3. Tommy Hilleke (USA)
  4. Mikey Abbott (NZ)
  5. Allan Ellard (GB)
  6. Marco Merini (I)
  7. Steve Fisher (RSA)
  8. Ralph Rhein (SUI)
  9. Phil Hausammann (SUI)
  10. Corran Addison (RSA)

17-year old Pat Keller had stunningly fast lines flying with his light body and race weapon over the water, but Tao just followed one second behind. Steve Fisher was looking speedy as well, but unfortunately got caught in the last hole at the bottom and lost valuable seconds.

The ladies' competition was equally close with Mariann Saether and Shannon Carroll again fighting hard for the top spot. Mariann looked strong as well and touched the finish banner one second before Shannon. Former downriver champion Magali came in as third.

Top Three Ladies:

  1. Mariann Saether (N)
  2. Shannon Carroll (USA)
  3. Magali Thibaut (F)

After a typical pasta lunch in the town of Rassa the winning ceremony was next. It was no big surprise that the 2 top rankings were for Pat and Tao. And if Allan wouldn't have shown such good overall results, the podium would have been taken by Team USA. Phil Hausammann from Switzerland performed really well this weekend and moved into the Top Ten, as well as the oldest participant of the whole competition, Francesco Salvato.

The final results:

Men:

  1. Pat Keller
  2. Tao Berman
  3. Allan Ellard
  4. Tommy Hilleke
  5. Mikey Abbott
  6. Steve Fisher
  7. Marco Merini
  8. Phil Hausammann
  9. Cheesy Robertson
  10. Francesco Salvato
  11. Corran Addison
  12. Simon Hirter
  13. Rene Boom
  14. Seppi Strohmeier (GER)
  15. Olli Grau (GER)
  16. Simon Westgarth (IRL)
  17. Raphael Thibaut (F)
  18. Simon Strohmeier (GER)
  19. Ralph Rhein (SUI)
  20. Andy Phillips (GB)
  21. Andy O'Connell (NZ)
  22. Kees van Kuipers (NL)
  23. Thomas Roggenmoser (SUI)
  24. Ludovic Escourier (F)
  25. Stefano Stanga (I)
  26. Emiel Beukenkamp (NL)
  27. Rob Coffey (IRL)
  28. Xavier Honor (F)
  29. Ali Donald (IRL)

Ladies:

  1. Shannon Carroll
  2. Mariann Saether
  3. Deb Pinniger
  4. Magali Thibaut
  5. Lilli Winter
  6. Ally Collet
  7. Polly Green (USA)
  8. Ingrid Schlott (GER)

The 2004 edition of the TEVA Extreme Mountain Games was once again a big success! Big thanks to the organizers who did again a fantastic job! Due of the rather cold weather there weren't as many spectators making their way up the valley as expected , but both thumbs up for next years edition. Beside the kayaking there was also a sky running competition as well as a bike contest on saturday. During the whole competition no one got anyhow injured, and the whole competition went down really well.

People are now off to their respective summer destinations. The season has just begun, snow is melting and the rivers come up nicely. Next weekend the TEVA Whitewater Challenge starts, which consists again of 3 different contests, but it's freestyle. The famous town of Lofer in Austria hosts the first of these events and counts for the Eurocup as well. Curious who i will see again there of the bunch of paddlers that were in Val Sesia... Uhhh, yes.. did I mention there will be a Boater-X as well ?!? ;-)

This exclusive Playak report by Simon Hirter

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