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Challenging Slalom draws the crowds

The Vrbas canyon drew crowds in their hundreds for challenging Slalom in yesterday’s IRF European Rafting Championship.  Through rigorous national selections, only the best of the best were racing this challenging course. Thus the tradition of raft racing on white water continued with IRF course designers using every feature to ensure the 14 gates did not disappoint for racers and spectators. The most challenging gates proved to be gates 2, 3 and 4 and then 9 through 13 with few teams clearing 11, 12 and 13 without at least one 5 second penalty.

The course proved a worthy opponent to teams from all age categories with Junior and Youth teams having times close to Open categories – these teams will surely be challengers for Open teams in the coming years.

Gate 9 was an upstream right in a narrow eddy that tested teams to spin into the eddy and keep away from the Vrbas gorge wall to ensure they reached the top of the eddy to be able to ferry out over to downstream gate 10 – the wave in the ferry proved a challenge to several teams as it kicked up the back of the raft meaning only teams with a strong ability to track the raft were able to clear gate 10. Downstream gate 11 meant that teams needed to move from river left to river right before the river bent around to the left for gate 12 into the boily eddy behind Mammoth Rock for upstream gate 13. This highly technical move was only completed clean by five teams across all age categories.

The deafening roar from Team Slovenia saw worthy medals for their Junior and Youth teams taking home two gold and one silver. In open categories it was Czech and Russia dominating the medal tables.

The final medal tallies in each category were:

Youth (U19) Men:
🥇- 🇸🇮 Slovenia 1
🥈- 🇸🇮 Slovenia 2
🥉- 🇷🇺 Russia

Junior (U23) Women:
🥇- 🇷🇺 Russia
🥈- 🇷🇸 Serbia

Junior (U23) Men:
🥇- 🇸🇮 Slovenia
🥈- 🇨🇿 Czech Republic 2
🥉- 🇨🇿 Czech Republic 1

Masters Men:
🥇- 🇨🇿 Czech Republic 2
🥈- 🇨🇿 Czech Republic 1
🥉- 🇷🇺 Russia

Open Women:
🥇- 🇨🇿 Czech Republic 1
🥈- 🇷🇺 Russia 1
🥉- 🇨🇿 Czech Republic 2

Open Men:
🥇- 🇷🇺 Russia
🥈- 🇨🇿 Czech Republic 1
🥉- 🇨🇿 Czech Republic 2

 

Slalom results:
Junior, Youth, Masters, Open

#AreYouReady #RaftersAreAwesome #irferc #erc2019 #RiverFamily #rafting #StrongerTogether #Bosnia #BiH #BanjaLuka #Vrbas #whitewater