Lyons Outdoor Games
Wednesday, June 18th, 2008
After attending last years Lyons Outdoor Games I was excited to return this year for another great event. Last years event hosted the first ever South Saint Vrain creek race and was the biggest reason that I was keen to return to Lyons. I was thrilled to see the organisers had also put a lot of work into making the hole a lot better for the event. The quality hole and on top of a great creek race made for an A class event even though water levels were slightly lower than last year.
First up was the creek race. After spending the previous day on El Dorado canyon the South Saint Vrain seemed clean and cruisy, the front range of Colorado is definitely some of the mankiest stuff you’ll find anywhere. The race starts with some technical low volume boogie water which is one of the hardest parts to keep your speed through. At the half way point you get into the steeper section ending with the most difficult drop of the run. Racers were given two runs with only the fastest run counting.
Race results looked like this:
1. Tao Berman
2. Andrew Holcombe
3. Jason Beaks
Competing at Lyons can be very tiring physically as both the race and the rodeo are held on the same day. People that say freestyle hasn’t progressed in the last couple of years haven’t paid much attention to what’s happening on the pro circuit. The biggest changes have been in where and how big paddlers are able to throw their tricks. Even in an extremely small hole the audience witnessed the pros perform almost every hole move that has been created to date.
Freestyle Results looked like this:
1. Nick Troutman
2. Stephen Wright
3. Eric Jackson
Posted by: Kelsey Thompson
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