The Popp team will be reporting live all week at the Junior Olympics
We have “embedded” journalists who will be reporting live for us all week from the 2010 junior olympics being held on the Nantahala River! Haley, Selena and Bryson will be sharing live reports about the events, the celebrities attending, the goals of future Olympic hopefuls and more!
Reporting on the Scene: Day One:
The Junior Olympic Festival kicked off with a “Fun” slalom race at the Nantahala Wave today. Kids from all over the country, and even places like Australia or Canada, met up and tried their skills at the gates. The turnout for the first day was lower than what we’ll see later this week, but we still had about 30 kids waiting anxiously at the start line.
It was really cool to see so many kids racing all together; we’ve never seen that many all in one race! It was really low key and felt fun to just try running the gates over and over as best as we could. The atmosphere was fun, and the spectators cheered us on; the further along the race went, everyone’s runs seemed to improve!
It was a great afternoon full of laughs as we hadn’t really run the course yet; Haley ended up getting lost in the middle of the course, and Selena was at a loss for where the finish line was… Bryson rocked the gates in Endless River’s new Fluid Donza, a plastic slalom boat that we’ve found is great for beginners.
Later this week we’ll have fun events like freestyle, wildwater racing, and the championship slalom race.
This Monday, everyone will be hitting up the surrounding rivers for a chill day of fun, but the rest of the week will be busy, so look for those kids and cheer them on!!