Well it was another extreme weather race weekend for the Tigers!

On the 2nd and 3rd October Middleton-in-Teesdale was resurrected as a slalom venue after many years off the calendar.

A cold but dry Saturday morning dawned with some doubts as to whether the event would go ahead after the river Tees had risen rapidly on Friday after non-stop rain, resulting in some lost gates.  To quote Andy Rhu, it rose by “one meter in five seconds”!  I think you had to see it to believe it!

By the morning the level was back down though so the event was on, with participants quickly arriving with great support from Stirling and Hexham based clubs.  Everyone was warmed up by bacon and sausage sandwiches from the superb on-site catering ala the Cresswell’s.

First runs went smoothly with around 40 entries.  After lunch second runs were more challenging when the Tutti system decided to be temperamental with communication to the judges going down.  So we ended up having to reply on leg power to get the results back to Control.

The day was rounded up with Prize Giving, with special guest Tees Tigers’ very own GB Youth Olympian Andrew Martin, as seen on the One Show and Blue Peter, handing out the prizes!  Congratulations go to Daniel Bradley, from Hexham CC, who was promoted to Div 3 in K1M.  And to Jenny Hammond who competed in her first slalom event for over 20 years!

Sunday dawned slightly differently to Saturday!  The rain was back and it didn’t look like it was going to let off. 

We were all worried about another typical Tees flash flood that Andy had experienced on Friday and that we all remember from the Prem slalom last year.  We therefore got the event started early at 10am after a good pitch in from everyone to get organised.

For once the Control tent was definitely the place to be though with all the judges and start and finish helpers coming back soaked through and with very wet judges’ sheets that we had to hang out to dry! 

The entry numbers were slightly down from Saturday with some paddlers obviously deciding that it was just too wet to get wet.  However this did mean that second runs were finished by 12noon and again after everyone pitching in the course and control were all packed up by 1pm.  So all that was left to do was to push the Cresser motor home off the field!

Congratulations for Sunday go to Ben Crummey, from Stockton and Thornaby CC, who was promoted to Div 3 in K1M and Erin Turner who won Div3 K1W resulting in promotion to Div 2.  It is good to see the Tiger girls moving up!

So that’s it for Tiger ran events this year, well until the Christmas party anyway!  Let’s see what the 2011 slalom season brings…