Just before worlds I  did a Freestyle deonstration for the introduction week for the university of Leiden. The local kayak club ‘Levitas’ asked me to show the crowd some spectacular moves to put kayakking in a deifferent perspective. So around 1500 fresh new students lined up at the shore of the canals of Leiden to watch the different aspects of kayakking. There was sea kayakking, canoe polo, slalom, flatwater and of course freestyle. As Holland doesn’t have many interesting features to show our sport me and Bart (freestyle boater from Levitas) started off jumping from a 5 meter high bridge.

The crowd was pleased by this and we followed up with some spectaculair (at least for flatwater) moves: random cartwheels,  loops, splitwheels and some tricky whuu’s and space godzilla’s. It was fun being out there showing all these students a aspect of our sport many did not see before..

Downside, the water of the canals is not very clean, and a few days later I woke up with my ear clogged. This ear infection was not the best just before worlds in Thun but it is part of our sport I think.

Here are some shots the guys from Levitas took that day. Did I mention the party after?

Cheers, Raoul