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French Champion Benoit Le Roux went out hard from the start – and by the time he rounded the last buoy had built up a huge 3 minute lead on Oscar Chalupsky. But the last leg was directly downwind – and there was just enough wind to raise some small waves…
 Start of the 2008 French Ocean Kayaking Championships
"Had the day wrong!"
Chalupsky only just made it to the race in time, arriving a bare hour before the start after driving through the night. "It was classic," he said. "I thought the race was on Saturday. I ended up driving 400km from Wuppertal in Germany to Rotterdam where I had to pick up boats and then another 1000km to the race. But the GPS had two entries for the same address and of course I picked the wrong one and had to drive another 100km to the correct one!"
Arriving at the race venue St. Pierre Quiberon, France an hour before the 21km singles race, Chalupsky just had time to set up his ski, change into his kit and get down to the start.
 21km seniors' course
The Race
"The organization was brilliant," said the big man, "but it was all in French so I didn't know what was going on! They had a flag system; we started between two buoys and no-one crept over the line."
The start was inside the harbor - and Chalupsky was fortunate that he'd taken the time to put a weed deflector on his ski.
 Start
"There must have been twenty support boats," said Chalupsky.
First Leg - tactics and currents
Heading out to the La Teigneuse lighthouse, 5km away, Chalupsky saw Benoit Le Roux heading to the right close to the peninsula. "I didn't realize that there are huge currents here," he said. "I followed him and saw the tide ripping out close to the shore."
Putting his wave-riding skills to good use, Chalupsky made ground on Le Roux in the rough water. "But I couldn't catch him," he said, "and he was quite a way ahead when we went around the first buoy."
.jpg "French Ocean Kayaking Champioinships 2008") Benoit Le Roux leads Oscar Chalupsky at the first buoy
 Rounding the first buoy - La Teigneuse lighthouse in background
To the middle of Quiberon Bay
Le Roux continued to put the hammer down. "I was going as hard as I could," said Chalupsky, "but the sea was like a lake. The wind was about 5kts and there were no white horses. It was quite warm and with the lifejacket and so on I felt like I was in a thermal suit."
To make matters worse, he hadn't had time to make up his Cytomax juice and had no liquid with him.
Several other competitors were on his heels. "No-one else caught me, but the guys were close behind."
 Rounding the last mark, 2nd, 3rd and 4th
Home Stretch - downwind
Rounding the last buoy, Chalupsky was told that he was three minutes behind the leader - and now he wasn't sure which way to go.
"In hindsight," he said, "I should have stayed with Le Roux. But then I don't know if I was even fast enough."
The final 8km leg back to the finish was downwind - and Chalupsky went as hard as he could, making the most of every one of the small waves.
"I started catching the runs," he said, "and started to reel him in."
Le Roux, off to Chalupsky's right, didn't see the big man catching up. "I was heading for where I thought the finish was," said Chalupsky, "and I pushed, pushed, pushed and caught runs and caught runs. But I was taking strain; it's not often I go to a race and average 157bpm and push to 173!
"Then I did a huge push to catch him, but I was stuffed."
In the small waves, Chalupsky was unable to stop paddling - a usual trick to conserve energy while surfing downwind.
"I might have put down my paddles - put only once or twice out of desperation to give myself a rest," he said.
Le Roux then crossed ahead of Chalupsky onto his left hand side. Chalupsky was left wondering why but chose to continue straight to the finish. "I think when he saw me, he knew I was stuffed, but he was just more stuffed than me. It was that tight," said Chalupsky.
 Oscar draws level with Benoit - Oscar's HR going at 172bpm!
"And the other guys didn't finish far behind," he added. "So it's really good competition. The guys here thought I was going to get my pipes cleaned because it was so flat - but there were just enough waves!"
Chalupsky ended up beating Le Roux by 20 seconds with David Szlachta and Yannick Laousse two and half minutes behind, one second separating 3rd and 4th place.
 Race officials and time-keepers at the finish.
Summary Results:
Guest: Oscar Chalupsky (1h40:01)
- Benoit Le Roux (1h40:21)
- David Szlachta (1h42:58)
- Yannick Laousse (1h42:59)
- Yann Le Tocquet (1h43:16)
- Nicolas Lambert (1h43:33)
For more information, see http://www.merathon2008.fr/index.php
Cadets and Juniors
Chalupsky was fascinated to see that there were enough paddlers to have separate races: 7km for cadets (under 16) and 14km for juniors (under 19). "This is something they've really got right here," he said. "There's a whole new generation of paddlers coming up."
 There was a strong contigent of junors and cadets
Ladies Race
The ladies race also appears to have been separate - some 15 women paddling the 14km course. There were no women in the 21km senior's race. (Editor: I'm not sure whether this is just because the women prefer to paddle the 14km course or whether they're not allowed to paddle with the senior men.)
Craft
"There are three or four hundred paddlers here," said Oscar. "Many of them are still paddling sit-inside style craft, but more and more of them are switching to sit-on top."
"The awareness of ski paddling is huge," he went on, "and they all know about surfski.info. They want a World Cup race over here and they've had a meeting where they discussed how they're going to select races - 20-30km, downwind and so on."
According to Chalupsky there will be French surfski teams at both the Dubai Shamaal and the 250km Southern Shamaal Port Elizabeth to East London Challenge in South Africa in December.
Website
The event website (for French speakers!) is at http://www.merathon2008.fr/index.php
Postscript
I asked Oscar where he was going after the race. "I go from here to the Sella Descent to meet up with some old buddies," he said. "Then to Madrid; down to Gibralter; across to Valencia and then to the World Marathon Champs in Prague. From there I go to Amsterdam, back to Nuremburg and fly to do a race in Sardinia... After that it's back to South Africa to do the Fish River Marathon!"
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