Nina Jelenc | Sportscene - Australia used to be the main destination for winter training camps for many teams in previous years but this year several European teams have taken the opportunity to do their winter training at the newly constructed course in Al Ain, United Arab Emirates (UAE). Some of the athletes decided to do their whole programme in Al Ain, while some stopped in UAE before the second stage of their training in Australia.

The newly constructed course is part of Wadi Adventure Park in Al Ain, the fourth largest city in UAE, located approximately 130 kilometres south of Dubai. Smaller time difference, minor expenses and a very attractive course are the main reasons several athletes decided this year to do the winter training in the Middle East. This time several athletes from France, Spain, Czech Republic, Austria, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia trained on the new course, while other teams are still to begin. “We’ll have close to a 100 individual athletes over a course of three months. We’ve got Poles, Czechs, Austrians, Slovenians here now, while the Russians are coming along with a couple of British paddlers, Spanish and French ... We’re really excited with the response,” says Fergus Coffey from the Wadi Adventure centre which officially opened in April 2012, and continues: “I’m very excited with the interest from the teams. It’s fantastic to have such a good response. I think this course is very different. The water is unique from some of the other artificial courses.”

The course is indeed quite unique and most of all challenging for the athletes who enjoy paddling it very much. “It’s different to Australia because the water there is not as fast and wild as here, so the crossing from flat to wild water is not that obvious. Here, the whole course is very long and hard. But it’s great. My hands and body are aching, but we’ll tough it out for the next two and a half weeks. I’m enjoying myself very much. The weather is great because it’s not too hot and the wind is not blowing any more. It was windy for the first few days, but that’s gone now,” said Slovenian Peter Kauzer. He was surprised when he saw the course for the first time. “I had watched some videos before arriving here, because Florence, Martikan and the Hochschorners were here before, but it didn’t look that hard. While you’re paddling it seems the curves just don’t end. I think this might become a very popular destination for Europeans,” added the two-time World Champion.

The course is physically very demanding and athletes must put a lot of effort into managing the rapids. One of the most promising young athletes from Austria, Viktoria Wolffhardt, finds the course hard. “It’s harder than I thought. I watched some videos at home, but it’s much harder than it seemed. Especially the middle part is quite fast and the course is so long. You always have to put pressure on the plate and you always have to look at the waves, otherwise you get pushed on the stones,” said Viki.

Nevertheless the athletes find the course interesting and enjoy every moment paddling it. The first group of Slovenian paddlers and World Cup Winner Etienne Daille took the opportunity to do a night training session under the floodlights and this ended badly for Slovenian kayaker Peter Kauzer. He accidently crashed his boat into the rock and broke it, so he had to paddle in a test boat for the next few days, before repairing his boat. This is one aspect of the course another Slovenian kayaker Janoš Peterlin pointed out: “There are a lot of places with sharp rocks which can damage your boat really quickly, so you have to be careful. But apart from that this is undoubtedly one of the best courses in the world so far.”

Not only the course, but also the life in Al Ain seems to be very interesting for the athletes. “It’s a bit cheaper to stay here than in Australia, the food is also cheaper. Especially the tropical fruit is delicious. The apartments where we are staying are really luxurious and comfortable in comparison to those in Australia and most of all they are very clean which is not the case “Down Under”. As I said - everything is great!” said last year’s overall World Cup Winner in K1 women’s event Urša Kragelj. She also, like everyone else, can’t praise the course enough: “The first impressions are quite different from those you get out of the pictures and videos. There it looks tempting and nice, but once you see the course, which is located in the middle of the desert, in person, everything seems unbelievable. I’ve never seen so big water park in Europe or somewhere else in the world, especially the park with so many funds invested into it. Although the course wasn’t constructed with slalom paddlers in mind, it’s excellent and real fun. It’s very similar to a natural and very fast river. The training of whole runs is longer than usual two minutes, which is something new for us, but it’s great for preparation.”

Fergus Coffey from Wadi Adventure would like it to be a competition venue in the near future. “We’d really like to hold a race around Christmas or New Year 2013-2014, whether it is ICF sanctioned or just a kind of test event. I don’t know right now, but I’d really like to hold a race here, because we hope to develop the slalom community further.”