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CONTENTS
TEVA WORLD RAFTING CHAMPIONSHIP / TEVA YOUTH WORLD RAFTING CHAMPIONSHIP
July is fast approaching and the preparations for the Teva WRC, being held at Dutch Water Dreams (DWD) in Zoetermeer, Netherlands, are coming together. This is the first R4 World Championships, and to top it off we are also hosting a Youth World Rafting Championship.
SEND IN REGISTRATION FORMS PLEASE! Even if you don’t have all the details yet – please send in your registration form to Sue Liell-Cock so we can include you in the plans. Sue will confirm them and then send them on to the organisers. Registration forms are available on the IRF website
For information on accommodation and transport, please contact the event organizers
For teams competing at the WRC, we have a TV deal in place. We will be filming the event and producing a 1-hour production that will be aired on various channels throughout the world. This is a great opportunity for teams to help find and promote their sponsors. Teams are allowed to brand their paddles, clothing, and helmets. As soon as we have more information on the networks, we will post them on the IRF website.
If you are talking to or have contacts for any TV network in your area, please let us know who they are so we can determine whether the production can be aired on the network. You can send the contact details to media@internationalrafting.com.
There will be updates as the event draws closer. The IRF website will always have the latest updates, and you can check out the WRC pages. You can also email Sue at the IRF or Rob at DWD if you need more specific information.
The IRF forum (discussion board) has been updated. WRC teams please log on and let the world know what your team is up to. You can add links, give us an update on what the team is doing, or use it to let friends and family know how you are doing at events.
If you have not run your national selections, please send us an email so we can add the event to the IRF calendar. Remember – teams allowed to attend the WRC and Continental Champs must be selected through fair and credible National Selections.
   
EUROPEAN CHAMPIONSHIPS
The European Championsips will be held June 2-6 in Vai Di Sol, Italy. The race consists of R4 and R6 categories The schedule is:
- Tuesday, June 1: Registration, official training
- Wednesday, June 2: R4 Sprint & R4 H2H, Open Ceremony
- Thursday, June 3: R6 Sprint & R6 H2H
- Friday, June 4: R6 Slalom & R4 Slalom
- Saturday, June 5: R6 Downriver
- Sunday June 6: R4 Downriver
SEND IN REGISTRATION FORMS PLEASE! Even if you don’t have all the details yet – please send them to Sue Liell-Cock. She will confirm them and then send them on to the organisers. Click here for all the relevant information on the 2010 European Championships. The event director and contact is Filippo Baggia.
  
AUSTRALASIAN CHAMPS – INDONESIA
The event takes place later this month (April). Teams have struggled to attend due to the hard financial situation around the world. Keep an eye on our website for updates and results.
PAN AMERICAN CHAMPS – BRASIL
This event is in August; keep an eye on the official website
EURO CUP
The Euro Cup has started, with races on the Tacen and Soca Rivers. Everything went well and the results can be found at http://www.mrzlauoda.com/eurocup2010/results. The complete schedule of the races is below. Please note we just added a race in Norway on June 29 and 30.
- April 17–18 Korana (Slunj), CRO
- May 1–2 Nisava, SRB
- May 8–9 Cunovo, SVK
- May 13–16 Salza (Wildapen), AUT
- May 22–23 Struma, BUL
- June 19–20 Trnavka, CZE
- June 29–30 Voss, NOR
- August 28–29 Lipno, CZE
- September 4–5 Vrbas (Banja Luka), BnH
- October 23–24 Augsburg, GER
The Euro Cup page has information and invitations/applications for some of the events. We will continually update this as we receive the information. We will also post the event results and photos as we receive them.
USA RACE SERIES
The USA has two grassroots series developing. They are:
Both series are open to all rafters, and the organizers would enjoy seeing teams from Europe and the rest of the world racing in the USA to help promote and build the sport.
GUIDE TRAINING AND EDUCATION (GTE)
The GTE program for the IRF continues to expand, and this year we are offering more courses in more countries than ever before. We are looking to do the first IRF course in the USA. If you are interested in attending, please contact Mike Reid. Other courses are being offered in Scotland, Greece, Bulgaria, Croatia, Switzerland, Slovenia and Italy, to name a few. If you are interested in organizing a course, please Contact Raewy,n who handles all the administration for the IRF GTE program. You can also contact Gaspar Goncz if you have specific information about a course and its content or criteria.
CONSERVATION
The IRF is working to make conservation a bigger part of the organization. If you have any local watershed or river conservation issues, success stories, or news, we would like to hear about it. We will post relevant stories on our website. Our hope is to draw more attention to the issues the world is facing in regards to water, or lack thereof, and how much it is abused, polluted, dammed, and drained. We also realize there is a lot of good going on in watershed conservation and want to spread the word about that aswell.
For the 2011 World Rafting Championships, the IRF is working with CAITE in Costa Rica to help make the event as sustainable as we can. We plan to implement some real changes to the race and how we do things. For one, we are planting more than 500 trees during the event and will be asking each of you take part in this. It doesn’t offset the flight or what it took to make the raft you race in, but it will all help. If you have been to events where a real difference has been made, please tell us
FORUM
The forum has been updated and is a great place for all of you to get your views known, find a guide job, promote your event, or find out the latest news about a particular team. The more you get involved, the better it is for all of us. The latest discussions are about
Get involved and let’s make the IRF website the place you go for information on rafting.
SURVEY
We have set up a very short and quick survey. Let us know what you think as this will only help us grow and ensure that the information you receive from us is relevant and interesting.
Click here to take our survey
STUDY
Andrea Keplinger is doing dissertation on "motivation and mental training of guides in extreme sports (rafting & canyoning) in the eye of responsibility and trauma/posttraumatic disease after accidents."
She needs the opportunity to interview guides about their fears and traumas they had after an accident in which a guest was hurt or killed. She is working on what it felt like and what you mentally had to deal and cope with. This is not a light subject matter, but it is important so that when accidents occur we can deal with them with much better understanding.
With her study, she would like to share the information with the Austrian canyoning and rafting instructors and show ”that psychological aspects play a leading role in getting through traumatic situations.” She created an outline for an interview (15 questions) and would like to interview guides via email and chat. The interview takes approximately 20 minutes – a little longer if you have more to say.
You can contact Andrea via email - angi_keplinger@yahoo.de or skype - angi_keplinger
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