The scene on the Chattahoochee in Columbus, GA 8000 cfs
This year’s World Championships for Freestyle Kayaking is on “Good Wave” in Columbus, Georgia, in the USA, on the Chattahoochee River. This is the 3rd time in history that the Worlds have been held in the USA. (Ocoee 1993, NOC 2013, and Columbus 2023)
Technology has made it easy to follow the event, both for seeing the scores come up live on the website, and for live streaming to actually watch the event as if you were there.
To watch live results on your phone: scan this with your camera and follow the link: or click on this link: https://www.canoeicf.com
If you want to follow the Apex party and see their results: you are looking for the following paddlers:
Hitomi Takaku- Japan- Women’s K1
Hunter Katich- USA- Men’s K1
EJ- USA- Men’s K1
Gael Beal- France, Junior men’s K1
Onni Eronen- Finland, Junior Men’s K1
Onni on Left and Chloe on the right
Chloe Spears- USA- Junior Women’s K1
Today the event begins on Goodwave with prelims for the C1 class, and Women’s kayak. Apex doesn’t have anyone padding a C1, but we have Hitomi, from Japan, paddling in the Women’s class.
Women’s prelims cuts women from 30 to 20. Hitomi won the 2019 World Championships in the women’s class in Sort, Spain, and is looking awesome in her new Apex Rebound small. Tune into the livestreaming or live results at 1:10est to watch the top 10 ranked women. My daughter, Emily, is also competing in this heat and she is looking great on the wave, a potential third title in the making for her! Go “Em”!
At 1:10 est Tuesday October 10th- Click here to watch: https://www.canoeicf.com/
Wednesday October 11th- Tomorrow the men’s kayak class begins (MK1) with prelims, cutting the field from 60 to 20. Hunter Katich will be the first Apex paddler to go and I’ll be the second. Hunter’s heat goes around 11:55am on Wednesday and my heat goes at 1:05 (EST- New York time).
Click here to watch: https://www.canoeicf.com/
On Thursday- October 12th- Juniors go. Chloe Spears is the first Apex paddler to go in heat 2 of junior women that starts at 10:52am EST. Chloe is the step-daughter of Joe Ball, Apex Watercraft’s guru of all things customer service, shipping, sales, and my right hand man.
Click here to watch: https://www.canoeicf.com/
The Junior Men’s class also has 2 Apex paddlers to watch- both in the final heat- first to go will be Gael Beal from France and then Onni Eronen from Finland. Their heat goes at 12:40pm set on Thursday. Team USA junior paddlers go in this heat as well. The first heat of junior men has Tim Rees from Germany, the current junior world champion. He will be worth watching as well! His heat goes at 11:30am on Thursday.
Click here to watch: https://www.canoeicf.com/
Friday things get intense as the classes are already paired down from prelims. Juniors get cut down from top 10 to top 5 in preparation for finals, the most challenging cut of the event.
Men and women get cut from 20 to 10 on Friday, another big cut for anyone hoping to go all of the way.
Saturday the men and women cut to top 5 from 10, and then the finals begin!