10 years - best of - ADIDAS-SICKLINE

10 years - best of - ADIDAS-SICKLINE

NOURIA NEWMAN (FRA) AND SAM SUTTON (NZL) WIN 10TH ADIDAS SICKLINE EXTREME KAYAK WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP

Fourth victory for legendary Kiwi paddler

Oetz (sgh) – The infamous Wellerbrücke rapids in Ötztal, Austria, were once again the worthy stage for the adidas Sickline Extreme Kayak World Championship. For the tenth anniversary edition of the event 175 of the world’s best kayakers from 33 different countries gathered to find the ideal – or ‘sickest’ – line on the challenging race course. The relatively high water levels already guaranteed fast times in an exciting series of knock-out rounds, and with a new course record of 53,80 seconds set by multiple Freestyle World Champion Dane Jackson in the semi-final, the battle for the prestigious sickline belt in the final was going to be a close one.

The adidas Sickline Extreme Kayak World Championship is truly unique as it brings together athletes from all the individual kayaking disciplines, extreme expedition paddlers, freestylers and Olympic slalom kayakers, to compete against one another on a world class stretch of whitewater. For the 10th anniversary edition almost all of the previous World Champions were at the start line, except for Joe Morley (2013/2014) und Sandra Hyslop (2016). And all of these six previous World Champions, namely Thilo Schmitt (2008), Alexander Grimm (2009), Sam Sutton (2010-2012), Gerd Serrasolses (2015), Aniol Serrasolses (2016) and Mariann Saether (2015), qualified for the actual World Championship battle on the 280-metre long Wellerbrücke race course, on which only the top 52 men and top 8 women are allowed to compete.