The Euro Cup 2013 Nis on the Nisava River was spoilt with two amazingly sunny days in what is often a cloudy and rainy Serbia. This is one of the few competitions where there is no entry fee required. This year we saw 4 countries and a total of 21 men’s teams and 8 women’s teams participating. Also, in this same contest, the University rafting competition was held for a second time.

The competition began with Slalom.

The course was perfectly set up and not easy for the beginners. And while several of them had worse second runs, some managed to improve from their first run. RK “Dayak” from Banja Luka, in the men’s category, lived up to the title of favourites and without a penalty in either run finished in first place. Behind them were the boys from KES “Vir”, Pancevo, Serbia, who received no penalty in the first run, but had a slightly slower time. Third was RT “Liman” from Zemun, Serbia, who received no penalties in the first run, but also had a slower time. There were no major surprises and the teams with more experience took the better positions.

In the women’s category the best was RT “Adventure Net” from Bulgaria, who received no penalty points in both runs (not surprisingly). Following them was “Reflip” girls, also from Bulgaria, and third place was RK “Kanjon” from Banja Luka, BiH, who in their second run showed what they can do, but not quite enough for a better placement.

The full Slalom results.

While the gates were being removed, the teams took some rest,  and then it was time for the Sprint in which there were some surprises, especially amongst the teams from Serbia.

Again, the RK “Dajak” from Bosnia, justifying their position of  favourites, won and were followed by the men’s team from RK “Adventure Net” from Bulgaria and third was KES “Vir”, of Serbia. The surprise amongst the Serbian teams was “Drinska Regata” who took second place at the national level.

The women’s category saw “Adventure Net” take first again, with RK “Kanjon”, Banja Luka in second place and “Reflip” Bulgaria in third.

The full Sprint results.

So now that the Sprint was done we had the ordered pairs for the H2H. The first round passed without any major surprises and favourites moved into the second round.

Winners of the men’s category targeted a great race line each time even if they were in a worse starting lane. They told me they selected a line and followed it every time. Maybe that brought them luck, we do not know, but first place was theirs against Adventure Net. The guys from “Drinska Regata” had a good result in the sprint and placed fourth after losing out to RK “Dajak” who placed third.

In the women’s category the battle for third place was exciting as RK “Kanjon” took the lead but the water dragged them to the right and team “Reflip” grabbed the opportunity to overtake and take third place. KK “Nikola Tesla” Zemun 1 had a surprise win in the semi-final and found themselves in the final against “Adventure Net” who were just too good for them.

The full H2H results.

These three events saw the completion of the first day. There were no flips and just one swimmer not far from the raft, but best of all was the beautiful sunny weather during the day.

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Article by Nada