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On Wednesday February 13 Cutter Aquatics hosted a pool paddling clinic with guest instructor, Joe Jacobi. Joe became America's first ever Olympic Gold Medalist in Whitewater Slalom at the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona, Spain and competed again as a U.S. Olympian 12 years later in Athens, Greece.
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Today, as one of the industry's top ambassadors for paddlesports, he instructs and speaks at numerous events around the world. This summer he will serve as the Canoe and Kayak color analyst for NBC at the 2008 Olympics in China.
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Tarrant County College Northeast campus graciously sponsored the venue, which gave all of the students from this semester's continuing education kayaking class a chance to participate. Three students new to kayaking joined in and many experienced paddlers signed up to perfect their skills.
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The clinic focused on basic paddling techniques and related them to cutting-edge concepts used by international champions. Well executed fundamentals are universal and can be applied to any kind of paddling.
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We promised that these two hours would change our participants' approach to paddling. Lorraine M. reported sweet success. "What a revelation! We were given simple outstanding tools and terminology for precision edge control. Joe told us to practice every level all the time to ingrain this fundamental skill into muscle memory. I want call on these new skills in river running, or whitewater playboating, or whatever I do in my boat!".
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An additional Olympian, Ben Kvanli, of Dallas and San Marcos, TX joined Joe for this clinic. Ben competed in the 1996 Olympic Games in men's k-1 whitewater slalom and is also a serious contender for an Olympic position in slalom tandem canoe for the 2008 Olympic Games.Following this clinic Ben returned to San Marcos to host the 2008 Olympic Whitewater Team Trials Qualifier Event at Rio Vista Park on Sunday, February 17.
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Joe was a wonderful ambassador. After the teaching clinic he got out his gold medal and spoke passionately about the Olympic experience.
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What a thrill for each student to hold an Olympic Gold Medal and talk face to face with a man who was the best in the world in his sport.
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Joe and Ben gave an expert demonstration of Olympic level paddling and posed for pictures with every interested student.
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As luck would have it, we received some nice attendance by local media. Eric, a sports reporter from the Star-Telegram, conducted a Q&A with Joe and the sports reporter from The Collegian attended the entire event with an enthusiastic photographer. The most fun media participation was Brian Curtis, the 4 PM News anchorman and reporter from KXAS the local NBC affiliate. Brian is also an Olympic coverage reporter who will be in China this summer. Brian and his cameraman arrived early and stayed late. They filmed everything and interviewed Joe, Ben Kvanli and Sandra M., one of the students. We got Brian into a boat for some first time kayaking instruction - that's on film too! The NBC coverage will air in a special presentation 100 days before the 2008 Summer Olympic Games.
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It was a fun night. I am thrilled that we had a whole pool full of kayakers - 14 boats in the pool at one time - on-deck spectators and impressive media attention. It will be a lifelong memory for all of us.
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