Nick Harding | @nickhdg | Sportscene - Winner of last year's White Water Grand Prix in Chile, France's Nouria Newman gives us an insight into her immediate kayaking goals and long term ambitions. She joins Sportscene as our latest Contributor; she intends to focus on profiles of creeking athletes who receive less media attention than their slalom counterparts.

“There are many great people who you've never heard about with great stories; people coming back from injuries, people from all over the world some with different social backgrounds, some living in remote places, all with many adventures to talk about.”

Fresh out of her winter photographic-internship at Le Figaro in Paris, Nouria is back training in Pau, South-East France and is over-the-moon to be doing so – she missed paddling profoundly.

“It was a great experience to get a proper job and have an experience of what real life is. Even though you are doing interesting things, going to work every day is always the same. When you paddle it's never the same!”

Unstimulated and breaking the norm

Nouria, whose father is from London, originally comes from La Plagne in The Alpes and learnt to ski when she could walk. She discovered kayaking later on after having learnt how to swim first, a prerequisite in France. Her first whitewater experience was her most memorable – rappelling down into a deep canyon with Class 1 rapids; it was an adventure!

At 9 years-old, she had a priceless opportunity that would change her outlook for better – she went on holiday with her family to Costa Rica where she met, Joaquin 'Miti' Garcia Benavides, who competed in K1 Slalom at the 1992 Barcelona Olympic Games finishing 41st. He offered to take her paddling and teach her to roll, a manoeuvre that is not taught first in France due to its risky nature whereas in other continents it is. Playing in waves, Nouria was no longer scared.

Back in France, she then found herself getting more and more into river running and freestyle with the 'older people' from her mountains at the age of 10. Nouria admitted to feeling unchallenged and somewhat bored as, until the age of 14, you don't have a choice but to compete on smaller, flatwater races. “You have to do at least two different types of kayaking but they have to be in the classics: slalom and sprint or slalom and downriver.”

Reliving the Grand Prix win

Since those early days Nouria's passion for extreme paddling continues to soar. Staggeringly she won 4 out of the 5 stages at last year's Chilean White Water Grand Prix, winning the overall crown. At only 21, this was an incredible achievement, which she hopes to emulate again this year but is head-strong knowing “in kayaking, you're never good enough.” 

Following in the footsteps of so many accomplished French kayakists, Nouria too describes her style as more precise than aggressive; “with my slalom background, technical rapids are better for me, that's more my profile, but with a big waterfall I do just like to go!”

A hare and the tortoise tale so to speak; she won not because of going fast but by sticking to her lines to remain in one piece! Having said this though, she also reveals how she was being really competitive during each stage.

“The thing about the Grand Prix is that you're not really competing, each course you have [your own] start, the only thing that matters is to do your best and not to miss your lines.”

Proud of her second stage performance, she describes it as “basically slalom in between rocks.” She was challenged on the Puesco, despite the small drops it was tricky with undercuts, logs and no room for error.

Growing as an athlete and adult, she cherished her time on the 'White Water Party Bus' driven by ex-Metallica tour chauffeur Carlos – there was a healthy mix of youthful rowdiness and intelligent river-knowledge sharing. The bus was far too small for everyone and all of their equipment, sleeping was virtually impossible. “It was amazing travelling with a bunch of friends for two weeks, sharing each other's passion.”

Nouria really appreciated how the male and female paddlers were treated equally at the Grand Prix, unlike, as she quotes, at previous Sicklines where the girls only paddled Class 3 rapids and did not receive any prize money – this has been improving though over the last couple of events.  Starts and courses for the genders were almost identical, she took pleasure knowing some of the boys were struggling on the same features that the girls attempted. On her rest day in between the last two stages, she recites how she ventured out with a couple of the boy-competitors and Katrina van Wijk (we featured recently about TiTs Deep) to paddle the high water on the Inferno Canyon.

Slalom dreams

Unlike Katrina, who wanted to focus on her whitewater career, Nouria is also a keen professional slalomist striving hard to balance the training between the two disciplines.

“Slalom needs a lot of time spent in the gates with lots of training. To start slalom is easier than going off a waterfall, but to be good at slalom is way harder.”

Her immediate challenge is competing in K1 at the Eurolympics on home soil in France. Her next race is tomorrow, Wednesday.

Her focus is undoubtedly on slalom this year and certainly aspires to compete at Rio 2016 for France, yet only one female representative is chosen every four years. Ferocious competition for this slot can often lead to tension amongst national team-mates in selection years; foal spirit goes against the idea of sharing your passion for the same sport.

The first reason why I kayak is because it makes me happy. If I'm happy it's OK if I don't go to the Olympics. I would rather be happy and not go to the Olympics, than train too hard and not enjoy myself in a kayak anymore.

Her prize moment from London 2012, despite being occupied paddling in Canada at the time, was the memorable Baillie-Stott run in the C2 final.

Plans

As for the near future and after the Eurolympics she aims to return to Pau for national selection, a quick trip to Prague is on the cards, she is excited about end-of-season snow-melt, and she would very much love to 'crash' on Katrina's sofa in Canada and try out the Little White Salmon River at some point!

Look out for Nouria's coverage from Bretagne.

Website: nourianews.blogspot.com.au
Facebook Page: www.facebook.com/nourianewmankayak