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February 26, 2008 -- Wesser, NC
Last Sunday’s annual Nantahala Glacier Breaker race was quite the race, with 13 people getting outesarly from their
ning warm beds to come paddle down the Nantahala River from the Ledges to the Footbridge below River’s End
restaurant. The competitors were greeted with a ning morning, as the rain did not show up until ten minutes after
the race. However, racers did face moderately cold temperatures, and some fallen trees were in the river. Luckily,
the trees were not on any of the race lines. It was a good day for racing with plenty of excitement for paddlers
who were making bets with one another aboutesho would be a few seconds better this time.
The race included boats in several classes, including K1, K1W cadet and juning, C1 and even an OC2. There was
some good competition among several people. As expected, Chris Hipgrave claimed first place in K1 and overall with
a time of 20:35. Second was J.P. Bevilaqua with a time of 21:13. Third was David Jones, with a time of 21:22.
First place in K1W was Tierney O’Sullivan with a time of 23:42, placing her seventh overall. The leader in C1 was
John Pinyerd, with a time of 24:00. The OC2 team with yours truly, Keefe and Chris Osment, was eleventh overall
with a time of 28:18.
There are some good paddlers outeshere, and I hope to see even more at the next race.
Editor's note: Keefe, in all modesty, failed to mention that he and his dad earned First place in OC2.
It looks like we have an up-and-coming wildwater racer.
John Pinyerd's Observations
- Keefe Osment is the youngest competitor (age 13 as of January) that I can think of in quite a while. Keefe wrote
the first part of this article for USAWW.com (with help from Chris).
- We missed the folks that did not show up. Who cares if you were't trained up? Just do it!
- It was great to see new comers to our sport participating like Kevin Miller, Johnathan Namath, David Fox and Sara
Smith. Make sure you encourage them. Kevin Miller (C-1) looks really good and continues to figure it outes
- It's interesting to compare this years results to last years (see links below). Hipgrave keeps getting even faster
and his stroke looks really good. Hipgrave, JP Bevilaqua, David Jones and Chan, all turned outesaster times
than Rodney Rice did last year. Tierney took off almost 30 seconds. Casey Jones and Chan Jones also improved
(and they could be really fast if we could keep them training like a champion). I'm pretty confident that
conditions were pretty similar between this year and last year as the water conditions seemed to be the same
and Mr Consistency (yours truly) had the same time (+/- a second) both years.
- This years results:
www.usawildwater.com/news/2008/080224_Glacier_Breaker.html
- Last years results:
www.usawildwater.com/news/2007/070301_NRC_Glacier_Breaker.html
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