News

Team WS Boasts Freestyle Winners and Spots on Team USA

Jul 07, 2010

Writeup by Bryan Kirk

This past week the US Team Trials took place in beautiful downtown Missoula, Montana. This was a perfect event to be the grande finale for the season; over 10,000 spectators, perfect weather, and enough rainfall to bring the wave up to an awesome level to throw every trick in the book!

Wave Sport has spots on both the women AND men US Freestyle Team! Haley Mills paddled her Project 45 to 4th place to narrowly defeat Devon Barker in a nail-biter final round and claim her spot on the team. I paddled my P52 to claim the 5th spot on the men K1 team to be able to represent the US against the rest of the world's talent in Plattling, Germany in June, 2011.

Haley and I are also both the new 2010 National Champions from the results of the 1st USACK National Point Series, which was an accumulation of points from 5 events. The events were: NOC Shootout, Lyons Outdoor Games, Fibark, Gunnison WW Fest, and the Missoula Team Trials which counted as double-points.
I have to say this was the toughest team trials I've ever competed at. I've made the US Freestyle Team 5 times now since 2001.

The raw talent this year in all the categories was simply amazing to watch, with some ridiculously high-scoring rides being thrown in just 45 seconds. We should have a strong presence in Plattling next summer!

Some photos from the Missoula event can be seen on Sports Illustrated: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/multimedia/photo_gallery/?eref=sihp