Sam Lyons

2010 AUSCAs

2010-02-20 23:37:59

The "Night of Nights" for Australian Slalom went on over the valentines day weekend.

74 people attended the event which was a great turnout and a big increase on last year.

The winners were:

Quote of the Year - Mike Druce with "What part of C1 Technique requires a penis"
Male Paddler of the Year - Will Forsythe
Female Paddler of the Year - Rosalyn Lawrence
C1W Pioneer - Leanne Guinea
Volunteer of the Year - Geoff Jones
Biggest Guns Male - Phil Gibbens
Biggest Guns Female - Corinna Kuhnle
Best Dressed Female - Jess Groenfeld
Best Dressed Male - Christian Fabris
Wipeout Award - Phil Kennedy

You can view the photo slideshow from the event here

Dislocated expectations

2009-10-26 03:56:22

Things were going well. I had just come first in the NSW Championships and I was enjoying training. Unfortunately good things don't last and my next session I found myself sitting on the side clutching my shoulder, watching as my boat floated around in the water.

It took about 30mins for the ambulance people to arrive and put the shoulder back in place and now I have started the ritual of recovery which I have learnt all too well over the last few years. Waiting for things to happen is always the worst bit, you have to wait to see the doctor and then wait to see the specialist. It is a big difference to the professional sportsmen when you see them injured one day and operated on the next.

I will need to have an operation which is a bit of a pity, I was looking forward to a solid block of training and working on closing the gap between me and the World's fastest but I will have to have a competition against myself and work hard to get back to be fit and healthy.

Melcan's Wedding

2009-10-05 03:00:10

The wedding of Duncan and Mel was a truely great day. It started with the goomsmen all getting together with Duncan and then after a bit of last minute suit alteration and me stealing the ring that Ben was supposed to be looking after we headed onto the venue.

The ceremony itself was a pretty short afair but was memorable for the obvious reasons (the commitment that Mel and Dunc made) but also for Ben dropping the ring when handing to the celebrant, whose the best man now?

The ceremony was then followed by a dinner with "The Price is RIght" style presentation of the Bridal party. After making myself look like a complete idiot by stiking a pose when my name was called out we had a lovely meal.

We then proceded to the speech and after bumbling through my opening lines (I had the speech planned out about who to thank and then the speaking order changed and so I was thanking people for speeches they hadn't made yet) I thought I did an ok job. Ben, Denise (Mel's Maid of Honour) and Mel's Aunt all gave great speeches.

It was then time to hit the dance floor and fortunately there was enough time left in the evening for me to make myself look like a complete idiot a few more times with some dance moves that were particularly suspect.

A wonderful day that we will always remember and I would like to wish Mr. and Mrs. Proust a very happy married life!

IACSS09 Computers in Sport Conference

2009-09-26 03:57:12

I have just got back from attending the International Symposium on Computer Science in Sport being held at the Institute of Sport in Canberra. I saw a number of really interesting presentations on the developments in the field of Sport Science.

The main aspects that I will take from the conference is that the best sport science does not look to impose on a sport but instead works with the sport to create feedback that triggers the athlete to think about how they can improve their own performance. Additionally ideas need to be shared so that everyone can thrive, this is often hard for people who percieve that they "ahead" of the trend but by helping to increase the level of others then everyone can thriive and the whole level can improve.

These ideas may seem self explanitory to some but to me the implementation of them is always the harder part.

The conference was a great escape from the dust storms of Sydney that have been blanketing my house!

World Champs Wrap-Up

2009-09-13 01:37:49

The has been an incredible buzz around Seu for the last few days. The competition has been extremely fierce.

In my individual race I felt good on my first run with just a couple of mistakes but found myself needing to find 6 seconds on my second run to be in with a chance of qualifying for the semi finals. My second run I really tried to attack and felt really good on the course. I was a bit disappointed when I crossed the finish line to see that I had only gone 3 seconds faster but I then found out that I had been given a penalty for small touch on a gate at the top of the course which put my raw time 5 seconds faster and much closer to what I needed to do. Although I ended up in 51st place I felt that I really had raced well and theta the standard of the racing here is so intense that any slight hesitations on your run and you end up missing the top 20 and as a result the semi final. To put it into perspective I finished 1 place lower than Spain's Olympic K1 on his home course.

After my individual race I was really keen to get stuck in to the teams race. Warwick, Will and I had been training well together and so we knew we had a good chance if we could just put a smooth run together. We qualified for the final with a really nice run with only one penalty. In the final we went that little bit harder and everything flowed really well. It was the best team run that I had ever done. We ended up in 7th place which was a really good result for us. The only slightly sour point was that with out our penalties we would have finished 3rd and got a medal but that gives us good cause for optimism for next year and we might even do some teams training back at home.

The Individual Semi's and Finals are today and so I am now heading down to the course to cheer on Sarah, Kate, Ros, Leanne and Jess who are carrying the flag for Australia (figuratively, not literally)

Opening Ceremony

2009-09-10 04:53:50

After what seems like a long time waiting the World Championships are finally upon us

Last night we had the Opening Ceremony in the square at the centre of Seu. The Ceremony included a walk through Seu and then some aerial acts ranging from the fairly traditional aerial gymnasts to the slightly more bizarre aerial guitarists (this was two people on a winch going up and down like a small child had stolen the remote).

The racing starts today with the C2s and K1 Women with my Qualification race beginning in the morning tomorrow.

I am really looking forward to racing and giving it all I've got.

Below is a YouTube video with a brief preview and a few comments from the team, including me. It will hopefully give you a better feel for what the course here is like.
rnrnrnrn

Barcelona

2009-09-08 02:44:53

I have just come back from a weekend trip to Barcelona which was a really nice break from the World Championship preparations. We managed to get in lots of sightseeing and an afternoon down at the beach.

Back in Seu things are really taking shape for the race which starts in two days time. The stands have gone up, there is a exhibition of Canoe Art going on in the town (I hope to get some photos of these to show) and they are even adding extra flag poles at the course to accommodate the 54 countries they think will be competing.

Last night was the coaches run, which is a mass run from the course up to the church which is up at the top of a steep hill. There was a very impressive turn out and 4 Aussies joined in with Mike, Yann, Myriam and Patrick (our physio) all giving it a go. The race had a Tour de France feeling with a big convoy of cars accompanying the runners along the road with horns blaring and plenty of shouting. The Spanish coach came in first in an incredibly impressive time that probably would have beaten all the paddlers followed by Ian Raspin, Pat came in in a very credible 5th place. Yann was next of the Aussies in followed by Mike and then Myriam very kindly let everyone else feel like they beat someone by coming in last.

The opening ceremony is tomorrow night and then racing starts with the K1W and C2's on Thursday.

Fire Festival

2009-09-01 00:00:00

Last night we went to the grand finale of the fire festival. This involved people dressed as devils parading around the city with fireworks on sticks and sparks falling from more fireworks strung up over the streets.

Fortunately our coach, Mike, had warned us that we needed to cover up and the first sign of the accuracy of this statement was when a person walked past me in full overall and wearing a gas mask.

At the sound of the first firecracker the crowd, including young children, massed around the devils dancing under their fireworks. This then continued for a full hour as we toured around the town. I stayed a distance from the crowd participation but I saw lots of the Aussies getting fully involved.

The final scene of the night was back in the main square where after another loud and spectacular salvo of firecrackers the tree that I was standing under managed to catch fire and quickly turn into a bonfire. After what seemed like some rather casual efforts to put the fire out, fire fighters arrived to finish the fire festival, rather appropriately, with lots of water.

Arrived in Spain

2009-08-29 12:10:22

After a good flight via Singapore and Milan (despite my instance that we were supposed to be going via Rome) we have arrived in La Seu D'Urgell in the Spanish Pyrenees.

I have had a couple of sessions on the course that was the 1992 Olympic course. It takes a while for the muscles to gain the normal feeling after the journey but I am feeling sporadically good.

There is currently the festival of fire going on in Seu and as part of this they had a hard rock concert last night (not really sure how that fits in with the theme). Now I was pretty tired and crashed out at 9.30pm and they were just getting started. I woke up at 5.30am to get some water to the sound of them still playing! Phenomenal, there is no way in Australia that people would not complain about a concert going on all night.

Structured training for the World Championships in blocks of countries starts on Monday but in the mean time we have our own training times which is very nice.

11 days to go

2009-08-16 03:59:03

There has been plenty going on over the last few weeks. Understandably I have been training very hard to try to get myself in the best possible shape for the Worlds but also there has been work commitments and I have even tried to fit in some of that pesky "normal life" stuff.

We just finished an NCE training camp in Penrith which was really hard work but the taper is almost upon us and I always find it much easier to work hard when you can see the goal. Although after having my lactates taken 20 times in 2 days I do now have a lot more empathy for pin cushions!

Australians are still competing overseas. There is the Under 23 team plus others (including the Kate and Ros Lawrence and Team Guinea) competing at the Slovak Open this weekend and the Slovenian Open is on next weekend.

What a weekend!

2009-07-26 05:33:56

It was a tough 3 races over 2 days and at the end of it I had, although it still suprises me to say it, won.

Day one was a normal race with two runs and I had a good first run although a very small touch put me in third place. Second run was again very attacking and I managed to move up to second place.

Day two and each run was used as a different competition. I felt good in my warm up and felt that I had a good if not spectacluar run. Unfortunately it was not good enough to secure my spot on the team and so it came down to the final run and again I had a clean run that I was happy with then I just had to wait on other results. Sounds easy enough but I couldn't take it so I paddled off and only later found out that I had done it!

I had a mix of emotions on hearing the news, although it was obviously great to reach a huge goal of mine to do so I had to beat other people to get there and one in particular, Anthony, who I have known as a friend for over a decade and who has been one of the World's best paddlers for at least that long.

I just have to say thank you to my Parents, Sister and Jono whose ongoing support has given me self belief, even in the harder time.

I now get back into training and the World Championships are in Spain in a month and a half.

Selection Race 4

2009-07-23 21:40:52

This weekend we have the final Selection Race for the World Championship Team. Due to age and performance requirements opporunites are only open in the Men's K1 and C2 class.

Live results can be found here or below.

I think there will be some good racing over the weekend and the course will throw up some challenges. The Stadium is currently running on 4 pumps and Stu has made changes to the course configuration that really change the feel of the water and although there is less power in the water there are still some very tricky areas.

samlyons.id.au goes Mobile

2009-07-16 21:15:00

After spending a fair bit of time on the road I found that I needed a website that was easier to access from either my phone or places with slower internet.

After a bit of time exploring different options I have come up with http://m.samlyons.id.au. So if you have a mobile like an iPhone that can browse the web or just want to view my site in a less cluttered environment then this is the site for you.

Now comes the nerdy bit... I have used the new html 5 video tag in the video section so that with Firefox 3.5 you do not have to watch the video through flash. Also if you are using the iPhone you can watch the videos straight from the website (that's exciting... honestly). I got the idea from this video for everybody post.

Ros wins World Cup Gold

2009-07-12 02:29:17

There were only 3 Australians racing yesterday on a much tougher course than qualification. Will was off first and had a tough time with a few early touches he had a run that can happen at Augsburg where all the surges of the water go against you.

We then waited for the C1W final with Leanne and Ros taking part. They both had pretty similar runs until the cross across the stopper at the bottom of the course. Ros nailed it and Leanne almost did but just dropped off the back and ended up missing the upstream. That was the difference between 1st and 4th. I think both of them will definately be in the hunt for Gold at the World Champs in a few months time.

Today it is Sarah's turn to fly the flag and she will have a big cheer squad! You can see the translated event website here.

It is my last day in Europe today, I fly home tonight and like I find with most trips I am ready to come home and get back to work and 'normal life'.

Most of the team are staying on for more competitions and will only get better over the next few weeks. It is an exciting time to be in Australian Slalom.

43rd in World Cup 3

2009-07-10 15:31:44

Today was Day 1 of racing and Qualification day at the Augsburg World Cup. Twenty paddlers from each class go through to the Semi Finals.

I had a very good warm up and was ready to race. My first run was clean and I was pleased with the speed but left me 3 seconds off the qualifying time. In my second run I tried to pick up the pace and had a good top section but fell off in the second half with a touch and a few errors.

So no semi final for me but I did enjoy my day and thought I brought really good intensity to my racing. I am sure better results will show through soon!

On a good note Will and Sarah both went through to the Semi's in 5th place with great first runs and will take it to them tomorrow. You can view live results here or below: