March 2002 Newsletter

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COMPETITIVE RAFTING
2001 was a year of great international competitions. The IRF World Champs were held in West Virginia, USA and despite the awful tragedy of September 11, most teams still made it and showed great international unity in the face of this world intimidation. The event was well run and thoroughly enjoyed by the 11 men's and 5 women's teams that made it. Germany came away with the top honours with Italy second and Czech Republic third. The women's section was won by the Czech Republic, with Slovakia second and the USA third. For moredetails, check www.rapidpulse.net.

The final Camel White Water Challenge event was held on the Zambezi River earlier in September and saw the domination of the European teams broken and southern Hemisphere teams doing very well. Australia came away as the champs, followed by Canada and then New Zealand. The women's section was won by New Zealand for the 3rd time in a row, followed by USA in second and South Africa in 3rd. This was the last CWWC as Camel have now pulled out of sponsoring the event.

FUTURE EVENTS
WORLD CHAMPS: We are hoping to run the 2002 IRF Champs in Tasmania in December. This is dependent on sufficient sponsorship coming through and this will only be finalised by the end of May. Whether this event happens or not, World Champs will be held in 2003. Various venues are being investigated for this and more details will be given at a later date.

EURO CHAMPS: If any country is interested in holding the 2002 IRF Euro Champs, please contact as soon as possible. As soon as more definite news is known we will let you know.

OTHER EVENTS: There are other international events being held and we suggest you keep an eye on our website, www.intraftfed.com, to keep up to date with them. At this stage we suggest you look at the Czech Republic's calendar of events which has an international event early June and the Europa Cup and Gumotex Cup events. Italy's calendar is also available on the website as are the coastal rafting events in Belgium. The USA events can be found on www.rapidpulse.net and include the Clear Creek event in May and the Gauley event in September. Indonesia usually hold an annual international event and New Zealand held their festival in February.

If you have events you wish to be announced to the rafting world please send them through to us and we can add them to the website as well as send the out to our database of contacts.

GUIDE TRAINING & EDUCATION
This has been split into regions so that more workshops can be run and so the whole process can be run more easily by the regional representatives. The representatives so far are: Europe - Steve Thomas (please click here), Robert Kazik ((please click here), Americas - Steve Nomchong (please click here), Australasia - Grant South (south@hiddenvalleys.co.nz), Africa - to be confirmed

French and Spanish translations of the Guide Award Scheme, Minumum Requirements and Training Programme will be added to the website soon as will the list of IRF certified guides, instructors and assesors.

Guides and companies are making good use of the advertising facilities on our website to either find guides or guiding work.

Keep an eye on our website for updates on the above topics. Also feel free to contact us if you have any suggestions or would like to be more involved in the running of the IRF.

MEMBERSHIP FEES are due again for the years 2002/ 2003. The amount is still US$500 for the 2 years.

PLEASE NOTE - the email address for the IRF is (please click here). The email address thansen@iafrica.com was for the CWWC and so is no longer for rafting matters of this nature.

Happy paddling !!

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