The French ‘tricolores’ winter training in the sun
Source: CKM - Mélanie Chanvillard | Photography: Claudine Leroux | Translation: Nicolas Scianimanico
Coldness spread over France and therefore it was time for the French paddlers to go training in warm, sunny places aiming to prepare the 2015 season. This year, wildwater athletes will race the sprint worlds in Vienna while slalom and sprint paddlers aim to get the Olympic quotas during the World championships in London and Milan.
After they went training in Spain in South Barcelona in Amposta, the wildwater team arrived in Pau to have their first try on the 2017 World championships course. Meanwhile, the slalom team spread over seas in sunny Australia and Al Ain (UAE) for several weeks, months for the luckiest of them.
Regarding the sprint team, they started their second training camp of the winter - the women and the 1000m K1 men who were in Ouarzazate (Morocco) - that lasted until 20 February. The sprint paddlers inaugurated a new lake in Abu Dhabi from 17 February to 6 March. Maxime Beaumont resumed specific training in Portugal at the Nelo centre with the Belgian Maxime Richard.
Before going to sunny Morocco, some athletes went to the traditional Nordic ski training camp whereas the women went to Lanzarote to the La Santa Club for ten days focused on physical preparation and cohesion. In this exceptional venue, the girls enjoyed swimming pools, road and mountain bike rides but also an athletic track and gym. Very well known by triathletes and swimmers, the La Santa Club allowed the girls to work on their aerobic volume (3 to 4 sessions a day), and focusing on coordination and vivacity at the same time with their physiotherapist Nathalie Marie. “It was a good training camp” claims Claudine Leroux, women’s national coach. “We could do long bike or swimming sessions but also working on individualising the preparations, for instance Sarah Guyot who is going to specialise on 200m put the emphasis on her explosive strength and coordination. This kind of “girl camp” allows also to work on the group cohesion and to discuss together about the performance factors and team values. To do so, Emilie, a mental coach from the Performance Optimisation Mission came to work with us for three days”.
The girls have been in Morocco for three weeks in order to resume specific training on water. The first week was centred on single boats before starting crew boats sessions and resistance sessions including also the dynamic aspect.