3rd at the American River Festival
The Reno-Tahoe Blog will occasionally feature entries from athletes sponsored by Reno-Tahoe, America’s Adventure Place. Jay Kincaid, professional kayaker, has been paddling over half of his lifetime, and is back to blog about his life as a professional kayaker living in Reno, NV. As 2003 Freestyle Kayaking World Champion, 2001 U.S. National Champion and three-time U.S. Point Series Champion, Jay is the most proud of the many first descents he’s done on rivers and waterfalls in his native Oregon and in California.
I left for the American River Festival last Thursdays morning. Lisa and I arrived at around noon, met up with the Jackson’s and headed up the river to the feature that we thought the freestyle competition would be. It was a hole just upstream of a rapid called Miya, and it was really good. We played there for a couple of hours timing rides and generally getting ready for the competition.
The next morning we got the word that the location for the event had been changed, so we headed just down river to that small hole and again practiced for the event. This hole was really small but we stayed positive about it, and everyone seemed to be doing a lot with what we had.
That night we went to the party at the River Store were we got the new update about the locations for the competition. It was to now be a freestyle through the rapid at Trouble Maker Rapid. So, the morning of the event we were all out practicing when we found a small breaking wave with eddy access just above the rapid. As a group we decided that this was the best option, so the event was now for sure going to be there.
In prelims I had good rides and ended up going to finals in first place.
Steven Wright was in second and EJ was in third. Finals were really close, but Steven was able to pull of a great McNasty on the small wave and won. EJ had a ride much like mine only he was able to get a little more pop on his moves, so he finished second, and for the second weekend in a row I finished third.
I was really upset to not have won, but I know that I am paddling well and am looking forward to the next event.
I am back in Reno now and will be until Friday when Steven and I drive to Portland and then Bend to do a couple of clinics.
