October 12th saw the final event in of the 2018 Nottingham Freestyle League season, and it was still all to play for!
After a busy summer of paddling all over the place, competing in lots of different events, the most important was upon us. Previous years finals have attracted world champions from around the world, names include Dane Jackson, Emily Jackson, Nick Troutman and Quim Fontane. But this year all we could muster up was SEND's Bren Orton. Fresh from falling off a water fall onto his face, Bren was taking some time to remember his routes here in Nottingham and was back in his freestyle boat. He was out classed by our mascot however.....
At the top of the leader board we had two paddlers within a point of each other, one coming from the 200 point category and one from the 500. In third was Alex Ludlow from the 1000, who was still within touching distance of the prize. This made for a very interesting event!
Under the flood lights, we kicked off. Lots of the classic moves were being thrown down; mcnasties, loops, lunars, harry potter's, just to name a few. The most important bit was that everyone who was in a boat or watching from the bank, had a smile on their face!
The beauty of the NFL, for those who don't know, is that it is very simple. We have got rid of male and female, C1 and K1, Beginner and expert. You simply enter the category of points you think you can get. From there you earn points each event, 5 for a win, 4 for second, 3 for third and 1 point for entering. They get put into a league table with everyone in, meaning anyone can win, it doesn't matter if you can't tricky loop you could still kick some of the worlds best arses and walk away with the title belt! This means we see assorts of fun on the water. This year saw Caitlyn from the 200 point category introduce a sausage to every event, and it faired well as she was sat in second going into the final!
But anyway, the final! Big tricks, a few sausages, no swims and a handful of party waves later, it was all over. 2018 season was done, all that was left was to tally the results and find out our winners! We have some fantastic sponsors who give away some brilliant prizes through the year and to the category winners. So the winners of some lovely custom Peak UK PFD's were Caitlyn Bradbury from the 200 point and the real Gav Barker in the 2000 points! Taking home a special team edition carbon Predator Shiznit was the 500 point winner Jonathon Witherstone (aka Spoon). And Alex Ludlow from the 1000 points took the VE paddles voucher. The main prize however was the River Legacy NFL title belt! A thing of beauty where the overall winner from each year would be engraved and immortalised. This year it really came down to the last event, with Caitlyn and Spoon one point difference. Caitlyn took the last win and Spoon came in second, closing that point gap and making it a draw! NFL cannot have two winners though, so with the most wins across the season, Caitlyn took the title of the 2018 Nottingham Freestyle League winner!
Check out the full table of results below! And a big thanks to all our sponsors and volunteers who have helped judge, organise and add up results!
Words & Images - Ibbo
