Thursday, June 05, 2014

Mystery World Championships

28 seconds, my new longest ever squirt boating mystery move ride. 

Claire O Mystery Move (epic photo by Scott Sady)
I just smashed my old squirt boating record at the 2014 Mystery World Championships. Last year I got one 24 second ride whilst training for the 2013 Mystery World Championships at the Leslie with the rest of my rides and all my competition rides around the 16 - 18 second mark. This year during the competition I broke my record with 3 rides over 24 seconds and a 5 ride total of 103.32 seconds.

Claire O prepares for her run (photo by Sara James)

It was an awesome event held on the Swallow Cliffs Squirt Boating seam on the Truckee River in California. At 5,500ft it was  high altitude event. Fed by snowmelt the water was crisp cold but clear. 25 people came to compete and the standard of paddling was insane.

The mystery crew (photo by Emilie)

In the week before the event everyone was battling to try and figure out the spot but by the weekend they had it dialled in. Organisers Colin and Noah kicked off the event with the first rides. Noah laying down a massive 42 second ride to smash the old 39 second mystery ride record previously set by Taft. Then in the 3 heat the competition went off. Stephen, Jeremy and Taft battled ride after ride smashing record after record with numbers 40 second plus runs. Huge, huge, huge times under water.

Steve O drops in for his first ride (photo by Monique Sady)

Preparing to hit the water (photo by Sara James)

Claire O watches as Jeremy gets some epic rides
(photo by Sara James)
In the end Stephen Wright set the new record high score with a massive 49 second ride!!! But it was Jemery Pugh who took the Mystery World Championship title with over 3 minutes (185.76) seconds underwater during his 5 rides. 1.24 seconds ahead of Stephen it was a super close and insane event and a massive day for the sport.

Steve O, Jeremy and Taft

Check out this awesome video Emile made from the event.

Worlds from Difficult E on Vimeo.

The night before the event we had the chance to do a glow stick photo shoot with professional photographer and local kayakers Scott and Monique Sady. They got some epic shots of us doing mystery moves. Check out the patterns we make as we move our way around underwater taping into the rivers flow.

Claire O Mystery Move (photo by Scott Sady)

Claire O Cartwheel (photo by Scott Sady)