Now 18 years old and having paddled for 8 years, Spanish freestyle kayaker and vice junior World Champion, Joaquim (aka Quim) Fontane is paddling in the seniors class, competing against athletes of any age, and also competing against idols he has looked up to for years. He has been competing in freestyle since the age of 13 but 2012 promises to be completely different with new goals to achieve and lots of training ahead of him. Quim looks at these challenges positively, providing him with an opportunity to compete and have fun in his kayak, to push his limits to see how far he can go and also gives him the opportunity to promote his sport.

To add to the challenges of 2012, Quim is also beginning an Environmental Sciences degree at the University of Girona, Spain. This has been more difficult that he imagined as physics, maths, chemistry, biology and statistics are all tough subjects and need serious work to keep abreast of their demands. He considers himself fortunate to have his kayak as a means of release from these demands and especially so as the new freestyle and slalom course is only ten minutes away from his house! It’s the perfect place to relax and forget about university troubles and integrations of the second order etc.

This is now where he trains the most even though the water levels are variable and not always ideal. He doesn’t really have a favourite place to train – any big to medium sized wave would do! Quim’s training schedule hasn’t changed much this year although he admits that he is training more than ever before, training every Friday and Saturday and most of Sunday. He also tries to paddle on Tuesdays and Thursdays after classes but this is dependent on the amount of University work he has due.

“Training wouldn’t be the same without his friends - Adrià Bosch, Sergi Ros, my sister Núria, Franc, Otger, Meritxell, Adrian, Marc, Pol, Joan Carles, Bruno my father Quim, and all the people in my club. It’s awesome to be able to kayak with really good paddlers who have come out of my Club: Gerd Serrasolses, Aniol Serrasolses, Adrià, Sergi… this makes you learn a lot faster than if you had to learn alone and makes it way funnier too.”

His favourite competition is “of course the Worlds because it’s a totally different competition where you can compare yourself to all the best paddlers around and you always have fantastic times making new friends, meeting old ones and looking for glory. One competition that I also like a lot is the National Games of Millau because apart from kayaking, other freestyle competitions are held and big parties go on all night – it’s a kind of X-Games and I love competing there! It’s one of my “hometown spots even though it’s 3 hours away from my home, it is one of the places I used to train a lot.”

In the 2011 Worlds in Platting, Dane Jackson was crowned World Champion and Quim holds him in high regard. “He’s one of the best kayakers in the game right now and he certainly could beat all the seniors and no one would be surprised! He is lucky enough to be able to travel around the world all year and train on the best waves, he is without any doubt the most travelled paddler of his age! On the other hand, I’m a normal guy, who apart from kayaking, has to study and train as much as I can, while I can.” Does Quim think Dane can be beaten?

“Of course I think he can be beaten, in fact I already have a few times. But to be honest, this is extremely difficult to do.

You have to do a perfect competition, the ride of your life, to get a score that could put Dane under pressure.

You also have to have a really strong mind and a good strategy too. And if Dane doesn’t perform at his best, that surely helps quite a lot too!”

The USA has always been a strong country in the sport of freestyle kayaking but with Joaquim’s 2nd place at World’s and Pringle and Claire both being World Champions, Europe is now becoming a high level contender too. France, England and Germany have a history of producing strong paddlers and now Quim’s country Spain, is lifting it’s profile being the third country to win the most medals at the last World’s. Quim credits this success to Spain’s trainer Jacko Jackson. He believes the best paddlers in holes are Europeans with his friend Mat Dumoulin being his favourite. Quim sees a new generation of extraordinary paddlers popping out of Nottingham and particularly highlights Peter Csonka from Slovakia who throws out big moves solidly. It is not so easy to single out the best paddler in waves but Dane Jackson, Nick Trouttman, the Airborn guys and Ben Marr all get a mention.

Quim firmly believes in the future of the sport, stating that it has huge potential. “It can be a very spectacular extreme sport if the competition is held on the right venue.” He would love to see the ICF promote the sport more, to increase its popularity and negotiate the entrance of the sport into the Olympics. Big trophies are not part of the sport in Europe although Quim has heard that this is different in the USA.

Quim is very happy and grateful to be able to represent his sponsor Kokatat who helps him with awesome gear. Unfortunately with freestyle kayaking presently being a low profile sport, it is difficult to earn a living from it and athletes have to balance part time work with their other commitments to make ends meet. Quim works at his hometown kayak club, the Salt-Ter Kayak Club, as the freestyle trainer and loves teaching kids about his sport and developing their paddling skills. “I’m very proud of them and good results are going to be forthcoming in the next few years.”

Quim has a number of goals for the 2012 -2013 freestyle season and it will come as no surprise that they encompass raising the profile of freestyle kayaking, travelling the world doing freestyle and extreme kayaking, having fun with his friends, learning as much as he can and last, but certainly not least is raising his profile in the sport he loves by placing solidly in the top 5 spots in international competitions.

Freestyle explained by Quim Fontane.