WELCOME TO THE GARBURATOR
Competitors set for churning river
Walk along the shores of the Ottawa River and you’ll be mesmerized by the great expanse of calm water gently flowing towards the St. Lawrence River. But the 1,271-kilometre waterway that divides Ontario and Quebec has a wild side. Oh, yes, right near the small Ottawa Valley community of Beachburg. It’s not for the faint of heart.
It’s where skilled and courageous athletes paddle specially crafted boats into a rushing water works to perform eye-popping tricks, spins and flips.
A small section of that turbulence, known as the Garburator Wave, will be centre stage beginning Sunday for the seven-day world freestyle canoe and kayak world championships, which will be presented by Wilderness Tours for a third time. The 40-year-old commercial rafting company previously played host to the worlds in 1997 and 2007.
The event opens with the men’s and women’s squirt boat competitions on Monday. The men’s and women’s kayak, junior men’s and women’s kayak, and canoe and open canoe preliminaries are Sept. 1-3. The semifinals go Sept. 4 and the finals run Sept. 5. The world championships have attracted a field of 211 freestyle paddlers from 29 countries.
The Summer Olympics have given exposure to canoe-kayak’s more recognizable disciplines — sprint and slalom. In sprint, paddlers go as fast as they can in a straight line over distances between 200 and 1,000 metres. In slalom, paddlers bounce around down a whitewater course and weave through gates.
But the International Olympic Committee hasn’t yet picked up on another of the sport’s disciplines one that would fit the bill for excitement, quickness and challenge. In freestyle canoekayak, the paddlers do as many difficult tricks as they can in a 45-second routine to earn as many points as possible from a panel of three judges.
When you talk about venues, the Ottawa River is one of the world’s hot spots for freestyle canoe and kayaking.
“The neat part about the Ottawa River is we are spoiled, rotten brats,” said event director Matt McGuire in an interview. “This is an amazing chunk of whitewater in our backyard.”
The Garburator, which is located on the Lorne Rapid, is a first-class launching platform that draws kayakers from around the world.
The super-fast wave can be seven feet tall, allowing freestylers enough time to perform their challenging routines, including tricks like the Space Godzilla or Phonics Monkey or Lunar Orbit/ Back McNasty.
The Garburator can be capricious. Many kayakers have learned the hard way that if they catch an edge, they will be ground up by the water, hence the nickname.
The Garburator was named many years ago by an unknown river guide at Wilderness Tours, is recognized as a powerful force, which can “chew you up and spit you out,” according to Matt McGuire.
“It wasn’t normally surfed until 15 years ago. Only the best of the best did it,” he explained, adding improvements to boat design allowed more freestyle paddlers to surf it.
“What makes it so special are the six- to seven-foot waves from trough to crest. It is big, powerful and you need incredible strength to do the tricks. It really beats the living stuffing out of you.”
For the Canadian team competing this weekend this is definitely home court. Seventeen of the 23 national squad members are from Beachburg, Pakenham, Arnprior, Westmeath, Pembroke, Cornwall, Cobden, Renfrew, Petawawa and Forester’s Falls.
“The Ottawa River breeds world-class athletes,” McGuire said. “I’ve travelled the world and I keep coming back. I’ve tried to leave the Ottawa River, but I can’t. It has its claws in me.”
Nick Troutman and Joel Kowalski, who both grew up in Beachburg and have been men’s kayak solo national team members and rivals for several years, can attest to that.
“It’s the best river for whitewater, simply because of the waves,” said Kowalski, ranked third in the world in 2014 and is entering his fourth world championships. “It’s a safe river. You can do very big challenging manoeuvres and train the hard stuff without risk of injury.”
Troutman, who is one of the Top 10 men’s K1 freestyle kayakers on the planet, will be looking to add to his world championship medal collection, after winning gold in 2009 and bronze in 2007. He placed fourth and 10th at the respective 2011 and 2013 worlds. These days he’s camped out in his trailer near the river.
He will receive plenty of competition from his brotherin-law Dane Jackson of Rock Island, Tennessee, who has won four gold and two silver medals at the last two world championships. The superstar of freestyle, Jackson won the men’s world K1 title in 2013 and is the defending champion.
Jackson, 22, captured three gold medals at the 2011 worlds in men’s C1, men’s squirt and junior men’s K1 as well as a bronze in the men’s open C1.
It was the first and only time an athlete has competed in four competitions at a world championships. He’ll do it again at the 2015 worlds, competing in the men’s K1, C1, OC1 and squirt.
In 2014, Jackson won the Whitewater Grand Prix championship for the third time in four years.
He comes by his talent, skill and determination naturally as his father Eric is a four-time freestyle men’s K1 world champion (1993, 2001, 2005 and 2007) and was second in 2009.
Eric, now 51, also represented the United States at the 1992 Barcelona Summer Olympics, placing 13th in men’s K1 slalom.