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Robin Bell | 2005 Canoe Slalom World Champion |
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Welcome to Robin Bell's Website
Robin Bell claimed Australia's first ever World Championship gold medal in the sport of Canoe Slalom when he edged out Olympic Champion Tony Estanguet of France to take out the Men's C1 World Championship at the Penrith Whitewater Stadium. (2005 ICF Canoe Slalom World Championships)
World Cup Final I am in Singapore airport after a manic weekend of racing. It was the World Cup final and Australia's best performance. The C2 and mens kayak raced Saturday. My training partner Will Forsythe took a huge step by making the finals. He was in 4th place after the semi finals, and after a touch was still poised enough to finish in 7th. A massive step up, and a building block for the future. The C1s and ladies kayak were on Sunday. My flight home to Sydney left at 2200 from Frankfurt 4 hours from the course. I had qualified in 4th place and was able to watch a few of the early paddlers race to confirm my choice in lines. There was a tricky combination between gates 1,2 and 3. Kynan Maley was off in mid pack and without getting the benefit of watching some racers struggled around these gates finishing in 21st. I took a conservative line at the top losing about 1.5 seconds off the fastest each run, but made up the time and more by being aggressive through the middle and bottom. I even managed to pull off a technical move I invented on the Swan Canoe Club gates in the late 90's. I led by 1.5 seconds going into the final and managed to increase the lead by a fraction. By winning the World Cup final, I also won the series. I am extremely happy with this, as going into the season my goal was to medal in 2 out of the 3 world cups. Winning the last World Cup is a great way to go into the Olympics. I know what it takes to medal and the Olympics is what I am after this year. I have 3 weeks of training in Sydney before I fly to Beijing. After the race, I had to load up my boat and headed straight for the airport. While I was on the road, Kate Lawrence won her first World Cup. This is her first medal and hopefully not her last. The junior Australian team arrived on Saturday and sang the national anthem for her at prize giving. I wish I had been there. Well done Kate! Here is an article about the World Cup. http://news.smh.com.au/sport/aussie-pair-win-world-cup-gold-20080707-32rl.html World Cup 1 Prague, 2008 The Aussies had a good race for the first world cup here in Prague, Czech Republic. We had 3 boats in the final, C2, Kynan Maley and myself. The course was technical which suited the likes of Kynan and myself in C1. The course designers managed to use every feature on the river, surfing every wave which made it enjoyable. Racing in Prague is tough. Results are very tight here with a touch being the difference for a final berth. Warwick Draper the Olympic kayak was a victim of this circumstance, finishing in 17th. I meandered through qualification cautious of my oblique abdominal muscle on a few of the waves. I ended up in 7th with a few touches. Video review showed I had the pace around the gates, it was just a question whether or not my oblique would hold up for a extended period of time. The semi final was a hard race. I raced off the start and had an awesome top and middle section, heading into gate 16 I let the boat slide and lost a second. I managed to hold it to the finish but Tony Estanguet went into the lead by a second. I was a little annoyed about letting it slide near the finish, but I was sucking in the oxygen more than I usually do. I think the 3 weeks of sitting on the rehab couch in Sydney was catching up to me. The final was a show down. I ran the boat a little more conservatively on the top and really knuckled down on the bottom. This payed off with a slightly faster 2nd run, but it was not fast enough to overcome Tony. Dave Florence from Briton was third with a good race. Overall it is a very good start to the world cups, which are a building block for the Olympics. My oblique seems to be healing well, pulled up a little tight from the racing, I am hoping to be in full training by next weekend. We are leaving for Slovenia this afternoon, the site of the 2nd world cup. Also there is an article on foxsports website. http://www.foxsports.com.au/beijing_olympics/story/0,27313,23891292-5014107,00.html April May training… I went to Beijing for 10 days of work on the Slalom course from the 5th of May. This is an valuable time to get experience on the Olympic course. The course is very unique and difficult and so there will be some home course advantage. Thankfully the Chinese C1s are still off the pace, give it another few years and they will be in the mix. The Chinese have restricted access for foreigners so it is important to get there in these accessible times. The training was brutal, rough water, at one stage I remember being upside down bobbing up and down on top of a tyre unable to roll. But never fear that was the worst of it. I did manage to get confident on moves down the big drop in all directions. The coaching staff and other team members left me for the last 2 days of training and my trip to the USA. I ventured to Charlotte, North Carolina for nearly 3 weeks of training. Charlotte has a new course designed by an old training mate of mine Scott Shipley. And yes he is an American cowboy, the course boasts 2 channels around 1.6km of paddling and twice as much gradient as Sydney. The AIS sent Ben Patrick a lawyer and old training partner from Melbourne for support. We worked well together allowing for a hard white water slalom session each morning followed by a fitness session in the afternoon. The fitness sessions included boxing, running sprints and mountain biking. There were 19kms of fantastic mountain bike trails around the white water venue. The last weekend of the trip was the PanAm slalom championships and Olympic selection for the US, Canada, Ireland and South America. I kept training up until 24 hours before the 3 days of racing. Unfortunately this did not leave enough time and I went in the first day fatigued. The 2nd day was the PanAM final, I managed to pick up for the for this event with world ranking and world cup points on the line. I won comfortably with 2 good solid aggressive runs. The 3rd day of competition was nothing special, fatigue kicked in again. The trip was fantastic in the end. I gained good knowledge of the Beijing course and a lot of white water specialised training. In the US I focused more on general fitness with a good shoot out in the end. Even though I lost 2 out of 3 days I won the major race and all the days fitness training will be beneficial come the Olympics. Its a balancing act whether or not to rest for the races or keep training. I arrived back to Sydney to be photographed with my Nissan X-trail by the Sydney Morning Herald for an article on the 6th of June about car sponsored athletes. Last week I had a minor tear in my oblique abdominal. I have been resting on doctors orders. I see the doctor this Wednesday and hopefully he will give me the all clear to start training. I have had to delay my departure to Beijing from the 31st of May to the 5th. From Beijing I fly to Europe on the 10th of June for 3 world cups on consecutive weekends. I will be back in Sydney on the 7th of July, then head up to the Olympics on the 28th. Beijing Bound Selection is over for another international season and Olympics Games for the Australian Canoe Slalom Team. Slalom in Australia is small but there is plenty of talent coming through, especially in C1 and ladies K1. I was lucky enough to secure my Olympic spot on fridays race. Kynan Maley who came 2nd behind me, had a fantastic final run but fortunately I had built up enough of a lead in the first run to take the win and the Olympic boat. The C2 of Lochie Milne and Mark Bellofiore also qualified on friday. I stayed out in Penrith friday night for the final race on saturday morning. Selection was over for myself and the C2 but the other classes were still up for grabs, with 2 different winners over the previous 2 races. The ladies race was over after the 1st run, with Kate Lawrence showing great form and taking a commanding lead. This meant there were 3 different winners over the 3 races. Kate's sister Jacqui won the first race and in the event of a points tie the results were split on this race. Jacqui will be going to her first Olympics, knocking out her favored competitors Kate and Louise Natoli. As predicted men's kayak came down between Anthony Brown and Warwick Draper. Anthony was in the lead until a crucial error 3 gates from the finish line, he lost 2 seconds and ended up losing by 0.4 second. A mistake that he will never forget. It will be Warwick's second Olympics. The Olympic boats head to Beijing on the 7th of April for a camp. I have to decide by tomorrow which races to attend in the lead up to the games. Aussie Open The Canoe Slalom Australian Open was just held on Australia Day, with the National titles (Australian Championships) decided the day before. The event was fantastic with 18 countries attending and Australians from all over. The C1 class was a good shoot out, with the last 3 passed World Champions present. The other classes also had a impressive start list. The race was held in a period more accustomed to high volume training than racing, so I did not want to back off from training until the last minute. I did a hard session monday, tuesday and wednesday and struggled through fridays Australian Championships. I managed to hold off the other Aussies the regain my 6th open C1 Aussie title, but the performance was far from my best finishing in 9th overall, 1 second infront of the closest Aussie. I guess this was a good lesson for Olympic selection in March. I have to be at my peak, any errors opens the doors for the others. The Australian Open is the first race in the World Series. Overall prize for the series is a Nissan Dualis, with cash prizes at each race. I was feeling better for the Saturday race after a good nights sleep. I had a solid semi final run positioned in 2nd, 0.8 seconds behind Tony Estanguet (France 2006 World Champion). Michal Matikan (2007 World Champion) was in 4th 2 seconds behind me who is always a threat. I stormed down in my final run, but made a 3 second error crossing a wave, I was fortunate to be fast enough everwhere else to hold off Michal but was unable to catch Tony. It was a good race against Tony and Michal. I come away with a lot of confidence going into Olympic selection and knowing I have to work on a few areas to improve before the Olympics. The World Series website contains video feeds from the race and interviews. The series website is http://www.canoeworldseries.com I also received some media from the event. Interview with channel ten news, The Age newspaper in Melbourne and also on the foxsports website. Beijing Training October 2007 It has been an interesting 5 weeks since the World Champions in Brazil. I have been traveling like a nomad, visiting Machu Picchu in Peru and training on the new Beijing Olympic slalom course. After the Worlds some of the Australian team stayed in South America for a holiday. People ended up split between Rio and Peru. I ventured to Cuzco, Peru trying to see some Inca culture. Machu Picchu and other cultural sites were amazing. The craftsmanship/stone masonry was awesome, building right up to the edge of a 400m cliff. Some of the best views out of the living room. 
I had a week back in Sydney where I visited the Sydney Motor Show and was a small part in the Nissan media release. I got to look into my new X-Trail which I will be driving in the next few weeks. The new Beijing whitewater course has only 4 blocks of training before the Olympics. I missed the first one, resting up for the Worlds so it is important to utilise the rest of the training blocks available to get to know the course. They held a 10 day training block which started on the 15th of October. The course similar to the Sydney and Athens whitewater parks starts with something like a blank canvas, which you then change with movable objects to get the desired river features. This process can take some time. The Chinese have a basic course set up but don't seem to want to change it. At the moment it feels like the impact zone of Margaret River main break with a similar survival rate. The course may not be very smooth but at the end of the day everyone will be on the same river. We did manage to get some shopping done at the Silk markets in Beijing, 2 tailored suits, ping pong bat and 10 Beijing Olympic shirts. I had to learn how to bargain reasonably quick. I think Mark bought some stuff just to show he could get it for half the price I paid for it. We bought bikes to get to training each day. Mine just happened to be a little girls bike, the only one left. The hotel was a small amusement park. We had several mini Olympics ten pin bowling, table tennis, snooker, sega rally and some type of air bowls. I managed to destroy Mark at table tennis but then was beaten by the Slovenians. I spent three days in Tokyo on the way back to Australia. I had a quick run around the Tokyo motor show. There were some crazy concept cars. I have just had my tonsils out, so I have a little down time. Then training starts... I head to New Zealand for 3 weeks at the start of December. World Championships 2007 Foz, Brazil - Bronze Medal 
Well everything is wrapping up over here. My bags are packed ready to go on holiday without my canoe for 10 days in Peru. The weather on saturday was stormy, with brief times of strong wind and heavy rain. Not the most ideal racing conditions. The course was technical which suited me fine. There were only a couple of brief periods between gates where you could just paddle and not set up for a move. Qualifying in third meant I was third last off. I managed to watch Christian Fabris (team mate) and a few others down the course, checking that the lines I had chosen were the right ones. After a quick check I was ready, nervous but ready. The race is also Olympic selection, which is a big deal and adds to the nerves. For canoe the top six nations are selected, which is roughly 12 boats. My run times were almost identical 96 secs. I had a penalty on the second run which gave me an overall run time of 195, good enough for bronze. It’s been a good season, 2 medals out of 4 international races, and qualified the Olympic spot for Australia. 2007 World Cup - Third The final race of the world cup series was in Augsburg, Germany. A course I have mixed feelings about. I have had several medals here over the years, but find the course a little frustrating. It is quite narrow and water varies a lot. I feel just a little too big for this course. The rules have changed this year giving more power to the course designers. This has shown different and challenging courses so far this season. The course use to be changed at a team leaders meeting if found unfair, now this process has been axed. The course designers can do what they want. And they seemed to be. I was early off in the semi finals, which I do not mind setting the time. I had a solid and clean run, and got to watch the rest of the racing. I ended up in 4th 2.5 seconds down. Augsburg is one of the hardest places to make finals and medal. I had the fastest time on the final run, it was enough to overhaul Tony Estanguet and Dave Florence but not quick enough for Nico the German. I was very happy with the world cups. Finished in the top 5 in each - 4th, 5th and 2nd. I was 3rd in the overall series, which got presented late on sunday. This is all fantastic in the lead up for the world championships in September and the Olympics next year. 
Europe Training After Brazil I spent nearly 2 months in Sydney training and studying. I finish off my Economics and Finance degree at Sydney University this month. While in Sydney I managed to get into a good training routine, fitness boxing with Paul Miller at Sydney Uni and solid white water work in Penrith. My results in the fitness tests on the 4th of May showed promising signs. I left for Europe on the 8th of May. I had a few days to prepare for the Slovak Open on the 19th & 20th. The race course was very challenging, with a nasty little move on the bottom in shallow waters. I was 2nd coming into the final but unfortunately the shallows got the better of me and I finished down the list. I had some problems bringing intensity to my paddling and found I was still suffering from the flu, which I picked up on my travels. After racing I was keen to get back to training. The following 2 weekends I had races in Slovenia, but they were only small races and I had planned to train through these. The first race was in Bovec, a small town in the mountains about 2 hours from Ljubljana (capital of Slovenia). The quickest way to the capital, which I thought was a little strange, was to drive over a pass into Italy, over another border into Austria and down to Ljubljana. Training was slowed down by the flu. I spent 2 days in bed, and had to cut back on the sessions I did do. It rained heavily the night before the race and the river flooded during the race. I was pretty flat after my sickness and could not handle the rising levels too well. I finished well down the list. A little frustrated with the last 2 weekends I headed to Ljubljana. I had a gradual start to the week but found myself eager to get into training after a slow start to the trip. By mid week I was back into the groove, helped by watching the Slovak Open on eurosport TV and realising how flat and tired I actually was. I carried good intensity through the next few days and into the 1st run of the race. In between runs I hit a temperature again, the flu was coming back to haunt me. I think I had done too much too soon, the old athlete catch 22. I won the 1st race by 5 seconds, but was flat as a tack for the second race the next day and finished in 6th. They had a super final in the afternoon. It consisted of one run, half the length of a normal slalom course and they turned the water up considerably. I managed to land in 2nd and picked up a handy 150euro, Tiger Woods would be jealous. I stayed in Ljubljana for the next week, and spent the 150euro on antibiotics, some blood tests and a doctor or two. Always a bit dodgy getting medicine overseas, the Slovenian doctor was talking about the antibiotics and horses in the same sentence. Currently I am in Augsburg Germany. I am doing half my normal training load, hoping by next week I will be healthy again. I will train in Bratislava the site of the Slovak Open and then attend a race in Slovenia on the 21st. After that there is 3 World Cups in 3 weeks, Prague, Ljubljana and Augsburg. Then back to Sydney for World Championship preparation. 2006 Canoe Slalom World Championships - Prague, Czech Republic
Well the 2006 canoe slalom season is over. It concluded at the World Championships in Prague during the first week of August. I finished the final in 6th place, after 4th in the semi-final (both semi-final and final times are added together).
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