Surfski Knowledge Base

Steve Scoggins
08/03/16 #19774

The heat is brutal(100 degrees)…,.the river has light current, beer cans and trash, SNAKES(not joking), hot wind, deadheads…..and SUPER FAST BELLINGHAM KIDS!

The venue here is amazing. It's got a jumbo-tron, electronic timing, live streaming….fancy everything. Even the snakes are fancy. I can't say enough about how incredibly pro it is down here.

All four Bantam ladies made the 1000m final, and then proceeded to nab 1st(Wolgamot), 2nd(Swetish), 5th(Noskoff), and 8th (Scoggins). This is a super heated group. Getting all four to advance and then two to podium is crazy.

Jonas Ecker and Chayse Gauthier rocked the K-2 1000 to a final, but the tiller broke during the final at about 200m in to it. They both threw down an insanely fast K1 1000m time in one of the largest fields of competition here. Remember…Bantam= little shavers against literally really big, fully grown shavers. It'll be exciting to see them hit the K2 again tomorrow with its new parts(thanks OKC team).

Milan Gauthier cranked out a super performance to grab a K-1 1000m final and podium (Bronze)….yeah, she's been at it for about 16 months. Way to go Milan!

Cameron got a solid PR in K1, and paired up with other teams for K-2 and K-4. He has the right attitude for sure.

Distance races!!!!!!
Ok, whatcom paddlers…..the Wednesday nighter has made these kids comfortable. Super comfortable. Thank you all for being a part of their progression. The community involvement and the opportunity to race against fast paddlers really helped the Bham ladies shine today. Results? See below.

Abby Scoggins/Sierra Noskoff Bantam K-2 3000m. 1st by a Long Shot. Dominated the race. They took 4 minutes off their time last year. That's a smile.

Ana Swetish/Elena Wolgamot
Raced up an age group to Juv K-2
5000m(real close to the Wednesday distance). 1st place by an even greater margin….in fact, the 2nd fastest boat in all 5k women's races/age group. 23.31 for a 5K. Look out.

Emma McCoy…….found her inner tiger. She went K-1 for the Juv 5K and did the crazy start we all do, stuck with the pack, executed perfect textbook turns, and is taking the silver medal home as a result. Yeah, she's pretty stoked. Keep in mind, she started kayaking last August. Now she's the U16 silver medalist at nationals for distance racing. Awesome.

Oh, and I raced too. Gotta keep the masters races going. I figured if the kids could dodge the snakes, I could too. I actually only saw one snake. But if you see one, there's more. That's a guarantee. Scoggins 1st place masters 1000m. I think we need more masters, because, seriously? Regardless, it'll be fun to claim national champ in something.

More tomorrow.

Steve

Kimberly Reeves
08/03/16 #19775

Way to represent….kudos to everyone…even Masters ;)
Kim

paul clement

08/03/16 #19776

That's crazy Steve! Nice work there.
Paul

Brandon Nelson

08/03/16 #19777

WOW!!!! What an amazing, amazing day of racing! So proud of all you racers and coaches there at the Nationals!!!! Proud to be a paddler from the same town as you all! Just amazing! Keep it up, crew!!!
Brandon

Steve Scoggins
08/04/16 #19778

Day 2

The kids are still hitting it hard here in OKC.

The Bantam Boys, Jonas Ecker and Chayse Gauthier both jammed out smoking fast heats in the 500m. They topped it off with an intense K-2 3000m race….quite a lot of sparring out there. They are gentlemen, played by the rules, worked through the chaos and ended up 7th in the nation. Pretty sweet. These two are almost 1/2 the size of some of the competition.

Bartlett did his work all day. K4, K1, threw down a tough 5K at the end of the day.

The Bantam ladies were a force once again. All four made the final in 500m. Results at the final went as follows.
Elena 1st, Ana 2nd, Abby 6th, Sierra 7th…..that's a good nationals showing from Bellingham Girls. Incredible.

Later, Ana and Elena moved up age groups for a Juvenile K-4 race with Emma and Milan……..1st place finish! It was a great race. I just love watching K4. They were fantastic.

Shortly after, Abby and Sierra raced K-2 in the Bantam 500m final…..and…..1st place!

So, at the end of the day, we are tired and the kids are smiling. The excitement of the 200s begins tomorrow.

Thanks for listening, and thanks for the Whatcom Paddler support!

Steve

Day 3….the long version.
Steve Scoggins
08/05/16 #19781

Ok folks.
Day 3.
You'd think we'd be getting tired down here. Despite the heat, despite the third day of racing, everyone was jamming on strong. If I were to name the team, or make a mascot, after the last few days, I think the Thunder Thieves may be appropriate.

The day started with Juv K-1 women's 500m. Milan, Emma, and Elena(moving up from Bantam) all raced well. Emma did a super star PR, coming just short of the final. Elena and Milan advanced on and both podiumed (2nd- Elena, 3rd- Milan).
That's a heavy group to contend with. Congratulations Elena and Milan!

Next up was a poor performance in an ill fitted boat by myself…..4th in Masters A group in the 500. The start blocks are totally cool, but I lost a little focus on the start, watching the boat in the boot, the drop of the boot, followed by me getting totally dropped by some serious 500m studs. Excuses Excuses. Next time maybe.

Bantam men Jonas and Chayse raged it on the 200s. These guys were flying down the lanes. The water was flat, no wind, so these guys are knocking out honest and pure times. Ecker went sub 50 seconds….?? Crazy. Chayse went sub 55. ???? Wow kachow….he just started this sport last fall.

Bartlett had the day off, but was still there to support and be a team player. To be clear, there IS fun stuff to do around here. What a great guy.

Bantam Girls blew minds once again, ALL four making the 200m finals!
Serious Thunder Thieving. These other clubs really take the 200 seriously, and when there's four Bham girls out of nine racers on the final start line for the third day in a row, on the third distance, people start to notice. Elena and Ana made the podium 1,2…congrats ladies!

Just before noon the Bantam ladies grabbed the K-4 and dominated the 500m course, going sub 2:00 for the gold. It was pure excitement. The K-4 national title remains with Bellingham for another year.

In the meantime, Emma and Milan went K-2 for the 500, made the final, and made an impressive run just shy of the podium by a few seconds. Keep in mind…fourth time in the boat together, and neither even have 2 full years of paddling.

The end of the day was a 5K for Masters. I'd like to say I was awesome. I wasn't. Poor start behind two guys, missed the leaders draft, went lone wolf. Ended up third overall, 2nd in age group. After all the Wednesday nighters, after all the starts, I started like a chump. Oh well, some lessons are never learned. And once again….we need more Masters at these events…..Scoggins shouldn't be the silver at nationals K-1 5k…..but I will take it for now.

The festivities end tomorrow. There will be loads fast racing. K-2 200s primarily……Side note….We saw the senior men's K-2 200 today and it was mind bending fast. Miles and Nate from Seattle crushed it against heavy hitters like Lischuck and his Gig Harbor partner. If you're not a Miles/Nate fan, you should be. Those guys have the right stuff.

Steve

Larry Bussinger
08/05/16 #19788

Steve, if you’re wondering about the lack of chatter about your reports, don’t be disappointed. We’re all reading them and are awestruck and wishing we were 50+ years younger and had this opportunity to participate. I was listening to the banter at the Wednesday night after race beer and we’re all excited about these kids. Congratulate them for us.

Larry B

dnjacobson79

08/06/16 #19785

So awesome to see the kids doing great! Honestly I'm super impressed with the motivation and positive energy from all the youth involved in the club.

Dan laid the foundation for an amazing program. Big shout out to Tom, Elena, Steve, board members, and all volunteers within the club for helping to grow an amazing program.

And, I think it's a perfect fit (we all know he has enough positive energy), to see Austin coaching the program.

The sky is the limit!
DJ

Brandon Nelson
08/07/16 #19805

Steve and crew, this is more exciting than the Olympic updates from Rio! So proud of all of you. So stoked that you're getting time on the national stage. That's where the BMT that guys like Oscar and Dawid talk about is built – Big Match Temperament. Keep up the awesome racing and bring home that heavy hardware!!!
B

Fantastic BCKST!
David Scherrer
08/11/16 #19812

Bellingham paddlers make big medal haul at national championships
Eight athletes competing for the Bellingham Canoe and Kayak Sprint Team combined to bring home 23 gold medals, seven silver and five bronze from the N…

http://www.bellinghamherald.com/sports/other-sports/article94885612.html

Way to go! With great respect…David