Today my day started at 3:30am to train. Corey Volt and I woke up had a taxi pick us up at 4am to start to train. We got on the water by 4:30am and of course we were not alone. Open training went well for me this morning. I had some more time to figure out the wave and am feeling much better about my paddling.

Team practice started at 7:51am and we stayed with the same group as yesterday and had our 30 minutes of pracice which is like 3 minutes per person. They were messing with the wave today to try and see if it can be improved. The wave would green out a bit during our time but everyone was able to get some work done.

They are building a ramp for the Big Air Competition today so the wave was closed for 3 hours today so the afternoon countries had to bumped up to later training. Open practice won't be till 10pm a few of the US Team will go and train tongight. I'm sticking with the 3:30am wake up call to get some time in. Hopefully they get the wave sorted out today and it will be better than today.

I'm going to hang out for the rest of the day today and rest and hit it hard tomorrow morning.

Take Care,
Elaine Campbell

For the first day of training the team got up around 8 ate breakfast and headed to the wave at 9:30. We devided the team into two groups for the hour, we split each class into two. So we had about 11 people in each half hour session. Each person was alowed 60 secounds on the wave, but most of us did not reach the limit.We all got 4-5 rides, dane and jeremy were in for the whole hour but had to switch boats for the halfhour session. Most had at least a few good rides.

Overall it was a pretty good first training day.

Hey guys, its Emery Tillman a member of the USA junior freestyle kayak team. Thun is incredible pretty, with a castle (yes the city has a castle) and crystal clear blue canals all over. The place where the World Championships are being held is right now under construction. It is going to be kayak central when they are through with it. Complete with a row of grand stands. There are also ads all over the place telling people to come watch the event where hopefully USA will kick some butt.

My entire family came out to watch the event (ok they came out to watch me), we had a lovely dinner celebrating my sisters 18th birthday at a restaurant across from the other dam ( not the one where the wave is) Jason Craig, and Stephen Wright were killing it with down river moves like Kick Flips and Macho Moves. It was cool cause my Sister and Mom finally somewhat understood what I talk about all the time when im home. I’ll hopefully be having some pictures in the next few days. I am so excited to be out here and hopefully everyone will do great.

Emery Tillman

We want to earn your support!

Pledging support for each medal won by Team USA at the World Freestyle Kayaking Championships in Thun, Switzerland, 8/31 to 9/6/2009! We have a strong record but will be facing the stiff international competition from roughly 30 countries in these categories:

Kayak / K1 Men K1 Women K1 Jr. Men K1 Jr. Women
Decked Canoe / C1 Open Canoe / OC1 Squirt K1 Men Squirt K1 Women

For more information, download the Medal's pledge form (doc)

USA Freestyle Kayaking would like to give a big thanks to Astral Buoyancy and Ohiopyle prints for their support of the US Freestyle kayak team. Ohiopyle prints is providing off-water wear for the team, and Astral Buoyancy is providing custom PFD's for the team. Below are pictures of the PFD from our recent "Paddle with the team" fundraiser in Salida, CO.