On the 29th June CANI athlete’s Jake Cochrane, Ali McCreery and I (Eoin Teague) alongside coach Matthew McKnight arrived in Prague, Czech Republic ready for a 10 day intensive camp. We met up with Welsh squad who were also training in Prague at the same time. This allowed us to link in with another Home Nation Squad and be able to share training slots and course designs.
Prague is a very narrow and fast flowing slalom course. It is renowned as a great place to train and held the senior World Championships in 2013. During training we were tested on tight, technical courses which took some time to adjust to. The water and the style needed to perform there are very different to anywhere else in the world. By the end of the trip all three of us were enjoying the course and paddling well in training.
Outside of training we had many opportunities to explore Prague, including going on a tour on Segways which was a great afternoon. I thought it was a really cool city and learning about some of the history of Prague was interesting. We went tobogganing and the mix of myself and Jake being very competitive plus the speed camera at the bottom of the track was always going to end in disaster and a lot of plasters.
In all it was a very productive training camp in which we were pushed technically and learnt a lot. I would love to go back to Prague and race I think it’s a great course.