C’mon lets Rock!!!

I have to say this was a Roller coaster competition for me and Dawid Mocke interviewed me afterwards which explained the entire event for really well!  http://www.thepaddlingcentre.com/blog_page.php?blog=145

6 Heats, 4 Semis and the Fastest Time in the World
Six heats, four semis and the Fastest Time Ever:
Bridgitte Hartley’s intense road to Olympic Qualification.

When I heard that Bridgitte Hartley won her World Champs 500m B-Final in a world record time of 1:46 + some change; I thought it was a typo. To give that time some perspective lets double it to get a 1000m time: 3:32!

Bridgey, as many call this cheerful blondie is FAST…very fast. And don’t let her happy go-lucky attitude fool you; Bridgitte is no push over. She is focused and goal driven and knows what needs to be done to achieve those goals.

She is so amiable that the management and other members of the South African World Champs team sometimes even forgot that she was there. On the day of the finals everyone on was ready to ship out and go home completely forgetting that she had a B-final to race.

“I really got mad” she says. “I think that actually helped me paddle so fast; the adrenaline was pumping” she laughs.

And fast she definitely was, posting the fastest 500m time for woman; faster even than the Hungarian girls who have been dominating this distance for years.

The obvious question then begs to be asked: What on earth were you doing in the B-Final then if you were obviously more than capable of winning the A-Final? What happened?

Her face is suddenly serious as she has clearly asked the question herself. “This was by far the most competitive field I’ve ever seen” she says. “There were 6 heats for the 500m and I’ve never seen that”.

She’s right, of course; last year’s World’s was considered competitive with 5 heats; and 2007, when Jen Hodson qualified it was also 5 heats. Six heats mean 54 competitors; in effect 54 Nations as you are only allowed one per country. That’s 54 of the best.

Small things make a big difference.
Distractions were abounding and it’s a testament to how small things can make a big difference.
“There were some logistical issues with team transport to and from the course; and also my coach is also coaching some of the Austrian team; so those things were worrying me bit.”
Only late on Thursday night did she get confirmation of a lift to the course the next morning as opposed to catching a bus. It definitely highlights how important team management is when it comes to athlete’s performance.

Then in her heat as soon as she got started, she suddenly saw this black camera mere metres in front of her. This is the famous spyder cam on the Szeged Course in Hungary allowing spectators a bird’s eye view of the race.

“It was filming Osypenko Radomska (Ed: from Ukraine, World and Olympic champion) and it was totally putting me off; unconsciously I actually slowed down and I lost count of my strokes. It was disappointing and kind of set me up negatively for my semi 2 hours later.” She came in a very close fourth with the top 4 going through to the semis.

The Semi Final.
Her semi final a mere two hours later was certainly a watershed race: she just made it by posting a one of two 5th fastest times in the semis.

“I crossed the line thinking I was third!” And then I saw the results… “I cried the whole afternoon because I thought: now I haven’t qualified and it was all too much. I was definitely way to stressed out.”

But, as is true to her never say die character she bounced back…in style.

The Fastest Time Ever
Obviously she was very disappointed after that semi and needed to vent it.

“I made a comment on Facebook: Sometimes words can’t describe how you feel; only tears help. So I guess I’ll have to build a bridge and get over it. Then I got so many positive comments from friends and family that I cheered up a bit.”

In Bridgitte Hartley language that means she was after a win tomorrow! She decided to have a good race anyway, completely unaware that Qualification was still within reach – the winner of the B-Final would still qualify! But Bridge didn’t know; all she wanted was a good race.

She wasn’t the only star relegated to the B-Final. Lining up along side here were Sofia Paldanius (SWE) a former world’s medalist, Rachel Cawthorn (GBR) last year’s bronze medalist, Spela Ponomorenko (SLO) 2008 Games 6th place and another Polish rocket too, who I won’t attempt to name. Unlike Brigitte, they knew exactly what was at stake!

She decided to go for broke and put in her customary line charge much earlier in the race.

“I was totally zoned on my lane and not focused on the others at all. Then with 150m to go I heard the commentator say something about South Africa in Hungarian and I thought: Freak…I must be doing well so I went harder. The noise from the crowd was deafening. I crossed the line, looked across and at the screen and saw the back of my head and knew I took it.”

Then she heard her time when the British girl, Rachel Cawthorn congratulated her.

“I went to the results board to see because I thought: No way we did a 1.46…imagine how fast the A-final’s going to be!”

But they were slower by almost one second and Brigitte had officially done the fastest time ever for the ladies 500m.

“It felt great after the previous day’s disaster. So many people were congratulating me I felt like a World Champion” she laughs.

The Qualification whisper…
Team South Africa’s manager Greg van Heerden, and Canoeing South Africa’s new GM Travis Wilkinson somehow got wind that Bridgitte may have qualified. They were onto that rumour like hyena to a carcass. The speculations were flying: “Top 10 goes so she’s in.” No, but Great Britain have a spot so she out”. “But GB has a K1 and K4 so there is still an open spot.” There were all kinds’ of scenarios being played out.

One person however was a stoic as a statue. Bridge’s coach, Nandor Almasi, congratulated her in his strong Hungarian accent: “Vwell dun Bridgat…I think you khwaalify; I know. I speak with ICF; they say Yas.”

Bridgitte decided, however, not to celebrate until she knew for sure. And her official confirmation came quietly, in a hotel lobby on the Portuguese Coast.

“I was sitting all alone and got an email from Greg van Heerden forwarded from the ICF. I officially qualified with the 10th spot. I felt like screaming and looked around for someone to hug. I think I might celebrate tonight.”

And that’s how it happened in 2011 for Bridgitte Hartley! Now, I expect that all of us will rally behind our next 2012 canoeing Olympian on her road to London. With a time of 1.46 we all know what she’s capable of.

Dawid Mocke

TRAINING in AUSTRIA

I spent most of July and August training in Linz Austria, there is a good 2km course there which we shared with the rowers and I enjoyed being able to cycle to training and practise on the course, most of my training was with Viki Schwarz from Austria and the Slovakian K2 girls, Martina and Ivana. It was good to have a few girls lining up next to each other for a few training sessions.  I spent about two weeks training in Hungary at the Csepel kayak club in Budapest, where I joined the C1 Hungarian men for some interval sessions and Timetrials.

I also celebrated my birthday in another country again! we went out to a traditional Austrian restaurant, this was good fun and I got very spoilt! I was great to help me not feel too home sick after being away from home for over a month.

I took part in the Austrian club championships for some extra race practise, it was good to just have a small racing environment to try psyche me up for the big world championships in August.  Time flew by as usual and soon we were packing out boats on the trailor and driving across the border towards the ROCK and ROLL WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS IN SZEGED, HUNGARY!

The 2011 season started with Selection trials in SA at the beginning of May. It was not the best way to start my racing season as I managed to pick up the flu so I raced with a blocked nose and tight chest. Never the less I raced ok and won the K1 500m and 200m events and then stuck to the tight schedule of Flying out at the end of the same week for the first world cup event in Poznan, Poland. I left everyone back home to take part in the nationals the following weekend. The illness got the better of me which was terrible so I was unable to finish racing and had to pull out of the competition after the semi-finals of teh 500m event.

I seemed to struggle to shake off my terrible cold and spent a week in Austria only managing to paddle once a day and then sleeping the rest… not ideal. The World cup came and went again, it took place in Racice, Czech Republic. Every race for me got better and better as I got back into the feeling of racing and the high intensity! I only managed a C-final for the K1 500m and started feeling better for the 200m races and finished 3rd in the B-final for K1 200m. yay some progress.
We then headed straight for Duisberg, Germany for the 3rd and final leg of the world cup races for 2011. The weather was not the best for the time of year, we were hoping for some good weather. It was not in our favour and we had icy cold challenging conditions! I didnt let this hold me back at all and raced much better in my heat and I won my Semi-final as well. I ended 7th in the K1 500m final. I was very happy to finish the world cup season with a better result in the 500m event.
I then headed back home to South Africa for a few weeks to start training again for World Champs in Szeged, Hungary

I went directly from Austria to my first water based training camp down in Port Edward on the south coast. This was a major temperature change but a very welcomed one!

There were a few C1 Hungarians training there with us as well as some of the Hungarian Kayaking men. I enjoy training with the C1 men as they have the same speed as the kayaking woman and often start better than me. These three weeks flew by very fast too and before long camp was over.

I didn’t feel like this was my best training camp ever as I was struggling to feel good in my boat again after all the skiing, swimming and running we did as cross training.

I spent a few weeks in Richards Bay training down the channel and into the harbour. We had some days where there was swell out at sea which created some small waves at Pelican so I would take a surf ski out and have some fun! I did a few paddling time trials at the Zululand Kayak club. This was fun as the scenery was different with a few runs to catch soon after the start and then paddling back into them on the way back. I managed to fit in a few surfing sessions in between training a few days of the week. It was good to have some company in the water after paddling alone, I had a good routine going, after paddling I would go do pull ups and push ups at the beach as the lifeguards tower as monkey bars outside. I would then go for a swim on the sea or a quick surf cool off. The running time trials were also nice for me as it was a little more social too, I managed to improve my times each week which was a good feeling for me in running. I enjoyed being close to training in Richards Bay, everything is about 5-10 minutes away so it improved my resting time between sessions.

I also spent a few weeks training up in Pretoria at HPC and at Roodeplaat and Rietvlei dams. I always enjoy training up the as it’s great to have a good gym to train at and the Physios have magic hands so they always help me recover quicker. Even though its painful at the time, I know the feeling afterwards will be good.

Sunny blue skies, crisp and white snowy mountains and a temperature reaching minus 16 on a few days.. This was not a normal South Africans winter experience!

This was my Experience for two weeks in St Moritz Switzerland with the British girls kayaking team. These two weeks flew by really fast and we all improved a great deal everyday on our skis. The first two days were spent with an instructor who thought us a few techniques with our cross country skis, double pull or one, one to name a few these are the different ways to use your poles. It was not long before we started time trials and some long 20km sessions. We spent some time in the gym as well which had a massive glass wall so we could look out onto the snowy mountains and frozen lake. We had two sessions a week at the swimming pool. We would have to occupy an entire lane, swimming always felt really hard but it was fun ending it off in a sprint session. We did some relay swims on the last day and I had to attempt a butterfly leg but diving in! My goggles came off my head and I spent the entire 25m race with them around my neck, never the less I finished it! After our sessions we would go outside to the heated relaxing pool, this was an amazing feeling to be looking up at snow, to have steam everywhere and a fresh cool air to breathe but still be in warm water.

St Moritz was a happening place and on our weekend off we watched bobsleigh world cup. This was very exciting to see in real life as I only know it from the cool running’s movie. We met some of the British guys who were competing and it was great watching them as they did really well and won a bronze medal. There was also horse jumping pulling a guy on ski’s. I have never seen that before so it was good to watch and the weekend we left was the start of a Horse Polo competition on snow, I would of loved to have seen that but our time was up. I really enjoyed all the great company and training in a squad it made training so much more fun.
After Switzerland I went to Linz Austria for a week to train with my coach and the kayaking girls from there. By the end of the week I was really tired and I was ready to go back to the summer at home.

This was a very good block of training for me to end off my cross training block.

I am very excited to have signed a new contract at the beginning of the year with my trusty sponsors who support me a great deal.
HPC, The High performance centre in Pretoria have been a major support in my paddling career so far. They have been sponsoring me for two years now and still offer me a good support structure which I require to train and perform at a top level. The HPC has a wonderful facility where I enjoy training when I am in South Africa. I sometimes wish I was there more often to use the facilities, but I need to seek training partners overseas to ensure that I am improving with the rest of the world!

The HPC offers a well equipped gym and often someone is around to help spot me or time my circuits and help correct my technique. I get all my sport science and medical support there too, this is a very important part of training to ensure recovery and prevention of injuries. There is always someone at the HPC who is willing to talk and offer me advise when ever I feel I need it! I have also made use of the testing facilities which I hope to use more of this year again.

Peptopro is another trusty sponsor who have been supporting me for two year as well. They are always very positive and willing to share information about their products if I have any queries. My supplements are always delivered to which ever province I am training in at the time to accommodate my busy training schedule. the multivitamin is really great and helped ensure I never got ill during my winter training adventure in the snow in January and the Peptosport and Peptopro ensured I was recovering to keep up the heavy training load for the last block of crosstraining.

Both these sponsors have really been fantastic and contribute a huge amount towards my past results and by having all my new contracts ready to sign early in January has ensured me that I have a good support group from them. check out their websites HPC: http://www.hpc.co.za/ and Peptopro http://www.dsm.com/

My next stop was Richards Bay. I spent a few weeks at home training and getting looked after by my mom. I enjoyed the longer days even though it was very hot sometimes, I could train later and then I would often stay at the Zululand Kayak club and watch the sunset. I tried to get some of my friends to join my easy paddling sessions after gym to make training more exciting and less lonesome. This turned out to be great fun as one day we took out an old K4 with a river rudder and pedals. It was like a barge but still lots of fun to go paddling with my friends. After our paddle a dolphin surfaced a few metres ahead of us and kept coming above the water a few times ahead of us.

They are lovely animals, as they always seem so calm. . I did a fun time trial just before Christmas where we had to pick names out of a hat and pair up with someone else from the club. It was really cool except that I got a guy who hadn’t paddled in a couple months and we got a handy capped start so I think I killed him to the halfway mark so we swopped partners with another boat and I paddled with the chairman of the club in a surf ski, while our old partners climbed over the road and took a short cut so they won the time trial! There was some swell at the beginning of January so the waves at Pelican Island were nice and small to catch with a surf ski.

I took a friend of mine Ruben out for a paddle and we caught few small waves, this was really fun but quite tiring as we had been surfing earlier. I did a lot of surfing in between my training sessions, I had to always train first then go surfing else I was worried I would rather surf all morning and skip the session! It worked out well though as it was really hot to swim later in the day so I would wake up early to do my swimming session and sometimes a friend of mine Ryan would join me. I really enjoyed my surfing it was great to be out in the sea so often. One afternoon I went surfing late and a dolphin did a full 360 degree flip out at backline, what a treat! I enjoyed being able to get to training in 5minutes everyday and my gym was in my house, this left me with more hours in the day to relax. I had some fun with my friends and made some new ones as well. I tried to teach my friends how to surf, this was a challenge! We played miniature golf twice in the evenings this was quite fun.

I spent a day playing golf on a mashie course in Felixton, I started to really enjoy hitting the balls by the end as I stopped losing them! We had day of fun ‘Olympics’ on Sunday after new year. We played Bitang, game where you have to try throwing a heavy silver ball as close to a small white one. We also did target practise with a BB gun, we played table tennis, pool, miniature golf and volleyball in the swimming pool. The pool was great as it was a humid and hot day. I took advantage soaking up the sun as often as I could, I spent an afternoon at naval island swimming and getting pulled in a tube behind a motor boat. We also took a big Jelly Fish out to sea again as it was stinging everyone on the shore line.

Christmas with my family was wonderful this year it was lovely to have a big table of family. It rained in the morning so we set up the table inside and moved outside later when we made a slippy slide down the steep garden slope. I blew up a Lillo to prevent grass burn at the bottom! This was fun until my cousin hooked his baby, which ripped and needed 6 stitches! Our fun then changed to hitting golf balls into the thick bushes on the other side of the wall, we got really good at making a golf ball fly and disappear. New Year came and went in a flash and 2011 hit with a bang and the realisation that this is going to be a good year! I started finalising my training camps for the year. I enjoyed my last days of training in the summer and paddling in my candy striped boat, I also tried to surf as often as possible as there was some swell. Next stop Europe! Linz- Austria and St Moritz-Switzerland..