Jackson Kayak Sweeps all Medals but 2 at the Freestyle Worlds!

I’ve been covering the Freestyle World Championships since 1997 under the moniker “Pollo” (Chicken in Spanish, derrived from Chicken Man, a nick name I got flipping BBQ Chicken for Wilderness Tours back in the late 80’s…).  My web site back then was RUchicken.com making the most of my apparent identity  Since the 2007 World Championships, the International Canoe Federation has been sanctioning the events, standardizing scoring and raising the criteria for running an official worlds.  This year’s ICF World Freestyle Canoe Championships were held on the very same river I first covered them on, the mighty Ottawa River up here in Canada.  No, there was no ice on the river.  In fact the scene was hot, sunny and awesome!   The headliner:  Jackson Kayak’s mighty team and their incredible 2016 Rockstar!

Team JK won a total of 13 of a possible 15 medals in kayaks (all K disciplines and the C1 class).  In other kayak classes Stephen Wright, an alternate, won the squirt boat class, with Clay Wright in second.  JK team member Claire O’hara took Gold in Squirt as well over Hitomi Takaku and Motoko Ishita. Dane won silver in OC1 (we can’t take credit for that boat).  This is the strongest team and best results we’ve ever had in a worlds.  Leading the way was Dane Jackson, with the afore mentioned silver in OC1.  He also got a C1 gold medal in a converted Rockstar ahead of JK team mates Seth Chappelle and Zachary Zwanenberg.  Zachary deserves TONs of kudos as he’s a newby in C1 and simply ripped it!  Dane got his big gold in Men’s K1 beating out JK team’s Mathieu Dumoulin and local hero Nick Troutman.  Mathieu was incredible all throughout this event as was Nick, who lead most of the rounds.  Emily Jackson got her Championship back with a decisive win over team mates Hitomi of Japan and Claire O’hara… none of them scoring higher than junior Sage Donnelly!!!  Sage took top score for any female on finals day leading a full JK junior women’s finals to a gold along side Darby McAdams and Sophie McPeak!  The junior men’s category had both Voorhees boys in the semi finals but only Alec in the finals.  Alec sustained an injury in his first ride but gutted it out for his last ride to come away with a silver.

EJ, Peter Holcombe, Isaac Levenson and I spent a lot of time writing and capturing these world Championships.  Our articles are found for each day, including video recaps and amazing Holcombe photos, here:

• http://www.kayaksession.com/category/ww-news/events/ – EJ video summaries done by Isaac, photos by Peter Holcombe
• http://www.canoekayak.com/news/ – Indiana James summaries, Isaac video recaps and Peter Holcombe photography

Final results
OC1 = 1 JK paddler:
Andrew Hill, Canada
Dane Jackson, USA (Jackson Kayak)
Jordan Poffenberger, USA