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| The farewell blog |
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I am writing this time to communicate to all my friends and others who have followed me in my career that i decided to stop with competitive paddling. It is not a goodbye to sport of course, but only to my active chase of a winning performance at the top level. Time is running fast and sooner or later this moment had to come. Thoughts about stopping have been in my head for some time now, but only in September they matured into a decision. Two months have passed since than and i do feel now it was a good decision that will remain final. I first sat in a kayak in early September 1991 and since than every time i sat in my kayak i had clear competitive goals in my head and vivid kayak dreams in my heart. This past September, exactly 20 years later, i stood up from my boat for the first time with goals that were not anymore connected to kayaking only and with dreams that were not only about winning anymore. I started to feel i need other challenges. And most of all i started to feel that i won't manage to improve in the future my results from the past. I also started to feel tired or perhaps fed up from constant walking on the edge of my physical abilities. To many worthy things are set on hold or kept unfinished for to long and I believe I was not on track to achieve my kayaking goals anymore. I will surely miss those rare feelings of being fast, powerful and unstoppable in your boat, of being in control of your body, of effortless glide. I will miss my fellow competitors and the adrenalin of the big races. I regret that i didn't reach the levels i feel i eventually could. I regret I haven’t achieved all the racing goals I had worked so hard for. I am sorry there was never a moment i was absolutely the best. Not all my goals were meant to happen. But despite all that when i look back on my own road, it seems unique, special and more than worth doing again! When i sum it all up, i most of all feel calm, proud and even satisfied in many ways. So much good stuff kept happening to me on this road. In 20 years of paddling i always played with all my body and all my soul, in the best way i knew. This will remain my biggest victory! 10 World championships, 11 European championships and 2 Olympics (5 finals in these races). A world cup race, a Student world championships and a Mediterranean games medal. Paddling on six continents. Training with: myself, friends, strangers, kids, really old people, Olympic and World champions, a Moroccan, Greek, Croatian, Israeli and a Portuguese fisherman, with the Maoris, dolphins and turtles, black and white swans, once i only missed for a hair to paddle with whales. Paddling in the Sahara desert and in -17°C, in an army base and around millions of dollars worth super yachts. There were at least 16 boats that were only mine to paddle. A crazy number of rivers, lakes, seas and channels (some time ago i counted more than 100 of them). Short moments of newspaper, radio or TV articles, interviews and shows on one side and countless moments of loneliness, tiredness, cold, pain, battles with myself, daydreaming, fighting and burnout on the other side. Moments of pure joy and moments of deepest disappointment. Unforgettable sunrises and sunsets, rainbows, landscapes, storms, waterfalls, eddies and rapids, winds, colors and mist...all seen from the boat. Countless airplane take offs, just as many landings and half as much soulless airports. Millions of stokes – long and strong ones, slow and soft ones, sharp and shy ones. And the kilometers done – roughly enough to make a round and a half of the equator. I invested a lot into paddling: hours and hours of training, hopes, plans, money. I lost some through it: some special moments, friends, opportunities, perhaps some health too(?). I believe i also gave something to my sport back home: I showed that you can train our sport in nearly impossible conditions. I proved that Slovenians, with no tradition nor experience in sprint canoeing and only limited knowledge could start mixing it up with the best. I proved that if you have something to show even the best (athletes, manufacturers, coaches, officials) will accept you among them. I proved that it is always important to try to study, understand and be able to explain why you do things how you do them. And last but not least i showed that a not particularly talented athlete can keep improving and developing steadily for at least 17 years. Of course sport gave me back a lot too. Friends, trips, experiences, revelations, partnerships and a lot a lot of great adventures (with amazing people, exciting races, deep personal ones and those connected with waters and nature in general). For an important part of my career i was a professional athlete and directly lived from sport. Perhaps most importantly sport thought me so many things: about myself and others, about growth, about setting and achieving goals, about accepting and same time about ignoring limits, about opportunities, about the weight of one’s personal decisions, about inner peace, about confidence, about balance, about learning, about focusing, about circles and waves, about expectations, about faith and beliefs, about the body, about trust, about persisting, about attention towards others, about acceptance, about borders, about discipline and work ethics, about learning to be relaxed, about how to listen and how to observe, about maturing, about regret and anxiety and about happiness. I feel i owe a loud thank you to many people for their help. With the risk of forgetting somebody important i will try make a list anyway: For the help in training: Dario and Marko Rener, Franc Gregorič, Fredi Apollonio, Lajos Horgos, Lazslo Kovacs, Ingolf Beutel, Boštjan Jakše, Klemen Jakše, dr.Anton Ušaj, dr.Vojko Strojnik, dr.Matej Tušak, mag.Katja Čavničar, Dejan Testen, Mateji Liberšar, J.P.Crochet, Nandor Almasi, Paul MacDonald, Ian Ferguson, Mark Watson, Tibor Soos, Jimmy Owens. To athlets with whom i trained a lot: Jure Urbanc, Matej Akrapovič, David Kavčič, Vjekoslav Tufekčič, Nikica Ljubek, Jernej Korenjak, Jaka Jazbec and Cristina Giai Pron, Zsombor Borhi, Ben Fouhy, Luca Malusa, Danish national team, Simon Faeh, South African national team, Shaun Rubenstein, Alan van Coller, New Zealand national team, Miguel Correa, Ken Wallace,all 6 guys from the Slovak K4, Igor Božeglav, Roei Yellin, Swiss national team, Fabio Egisto Wyss, the French national team, Christophe Nicolet, Rok Kuk, Lovro leban and Yasuhiro Suzuki. To officials: Andrej Jelenc in Bojan Žmavc (both Slovenia canoe federation), Branko Brezigar (Canoe club Soške elktrarne), Rajko Petek, Martin Fabjan and Miran Stanovnik (sports unit of the Slovenian army), Blaž Perko and Borut Kolarič (Slovenian Olympic committee). To all of the people in the press who wrote about me and very often also cheered for me. To families: Farr, Taljat, Tserga, Artnik, Kavčič. To all my fellow competitors for sharing the ride. To sponsors: Slovenian army (for employing me), Nelo and the amazing Nelo Stuff (for the best boats, for the week in Vila do Conde, for the Summer Challenge experience, for transporting and sending the boats around the world for me, for that other drives, for supporting me, for the friendship and for the sessions together), Jantex (who was the first to offer me free gear), Sandiline (for the warm paddling gear), Difar (for sincere support), Klemen Požinel and Salon Zarja (for the energy and magic), IntAct (for the gadgets and opportunities), Hitrost.com (for web solutions), Avto Jereb (for the help with my ride), Poni and Mateja Liberšar (for the therapies). To Kristjan Kavčič for the best web page. To the friends and fans for showing me how much me and my paddling meant to them. To all these people - Sincerely Thanks! I was lucky enough that during my career without even planning it too much i was able to sort out some things that will now enable me to have quite a smooth transition to a more ordinary life. A degree in sports science and physical education plus 20 years of experience in sport will be a solid base to build on. From May 2011 i have a contract with the Ministry for sport and education and the Slovenian canoe federation for coaching in a project called 'national federation sport schools', this is where i get my present monthly income and social security from. Coaching three different age groups in my club is a marvelous opportunity for getting lots of work experience at the moment. Good sporting friends as far as Argentina and Japan, or Denmark and South Africa and the contact with them will keep me open minded (and perhaps allow me to visit them one by one during holidays). While friends and family make up a nice frame inside where i can feel calm, safe and confident every day. It is not a secret the last three years were very hard for me in many ways. It is therefore clear to me life is not always nice and kind with you. But i also know one thing to be true – at the end it is all up to you. In the last 2 months i found myself in three new areas of work. Only some of them were part of my life already from before. I believe i will pursue new goals in the three of them from now on. More about all this when things get rolling and when the new web page will be up and running (on this same address). I am feeling a little bit like when i sat in my boat for the first time. A new beginning… PS: This was the last blog of me as an athlete, but i will keep blogging, so keep reading me - once a paddler always a paddler! But for those of us who will not meet regularly anymore, here are my addresses: E-mail: zupancicregent@gmail.com Skype: jernej.zupancic.regent Twitter: jernejzr 
Posted by Jernej on
Monday 05 December 2011 - 21:30:09
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| World championships 2011 |
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This year's world championship was perhaps the hardest one for me ever. For the first time in my career i got a serious injury and if i wanted to race in Szeged i had to accept this fact and somehow deal with it through the summer training and the championship. The problem first started during our winter training camp in Skradin after wich i had to take a week off the water. It seemingly calmed down afterwards and i could race the selections and the world cups with no problems. Straight after the world cups the inflammation in my forearm started to appear again. I was able to paddle without any problem at lower intensities and even at top speed (efforts are short enough), but i was gradually more and more unable to push it at any other intensity zones in between there. I could train with big volumes, but was unable to make any serious and hard intensity sessions or even complete a time trial. Eventually the situation deteriorated so much, i was forced to take a week off just before leaving to Szeged. On Sunday before the big race i sat in the boat and took it for a spin, the pain was not gone but i decided i will race the Worlds anyway. It would be most probably wiser not to race in such situation. Even without having any problems the task in front of me would be really hard on its own, while with the inflamed forearm and inappropriate training my chances to succeed were reduced to the slimmest of margins. I knew i was going to race the fastest guys in the world when they are in their top form; i knew the racing never in the past was on such a high level; i knew the biggest canoe crowd in the world would be there to cheer you to paddle at your best and not to help you reach the finish line; i knew i was asking for trouble. But i also knew i had put into my Olympic dream everything i had; i knew i had put everything on the line in the last 20 years; i knew if i'd make it to my 3rd Olympics i wanted to make it my Games and same time i knew it would probably be my last ones too; i knew that even if i only make it to there i would be the only Slovenian kayaker who ever raced on three olympics (Kauzer and Ponomarenko will now reach me when they race their second in London), i knew i needed one more chance to put all my work together, i knew i wanted so much since i was a kid to race a big final in Szeged and feel fast, powerfull and free all the way to the finish line! Simply to many things from the past and from the future were on the line, i felt i owned it to my self to go there despite how i felt in reality and put the cards i had on the table in Hungary. I made it to the B final and finished last there, the second worst result on world championships of my life. But same time that was it. I was not fit nor ready for more. I gave it all i had, maybe more. I believe i had one of the most perfect performances of all my 10 world championships. In heat, semi and B final in Szeged i raced with such a focus, that i have nearly no recall about the races in my memory. Technically i paddled so well and so controlled that the pain was not to big while same time i managed to keep a very honest race pace, a compromise, but a good one. I feel i have done everything i could in a situation when it wasn't easy to stay composed. I am proud of it and finally very happy to have decided to race the championships. An invaluable experience of an outside defeet that turns out to be an inner victory. Most of the things that were on the line with this race slipped away. But i learned much about myself with it. Sports, they say, don't bulid, but reveal character. I am happy about what racing in Szeged revealed to me. That's a nice gift at the end of what was a difficult jurney in the last few seasons. But most of all, i sticked to the Greek saying "Either [with] it [your shield], or on it" (ἢ τὰν ἢ ἐπὶ τᾶς) and never lost my shield. Offical site of the championships (reports and results). My Picasa gallery (not a brilliant one, but hey, i was using my left hand mostly). A TV reportage form Szeged for the monthly Slovenian canoe-kayak TV show. Adam van Koeverden's blog after his dream performance. 
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| Race report World cup 2 – Račice |
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Had put in some good sessions after Poznan and i was going into the next race faster than in Poznan. Polished the start a bit and the second half of the race. But wih pretty much all the best paddlers present i was just short of the final in what was going to become the strongest world cup of the season. Had a very solid semi , was indeed powerless against the supercharged Rene Holten Poulsen in the lane next to me, but came really close to the Hungarian who finished second. Third place in the semi meant B final for me. At first i was quite disappointed but got really motivated to make an other good race in the little final when i saw the names racing it. Deffinitelly everyone is going hard and the competition getting tighter. Finished 3rd in the B final at the end. Solid racing overall and lots of usefull feedback for future training in the summer. That was it for this year's world cups for me. I am quite satisfied with my performances as they are a nice step forward from last year's problems. I am also confident i can get faster over the summer. But the competition also seems stronger than ever. Matthew Pinsent said once before helping Sir Steven Redgrave to win his fifth olympic medal: ''We need to pull a rabbit out of the hat, actually a very substantial rabbit out of a very small hat!'' Untill Szeged i definitelly have a lot of work to do to be in top 8, but i definitelly feel i don't need magic to happen. And that is good. Results here.
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| Race report World cup 1 – Poznan |
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Great weather wellcomed us in Poznan and stayed with us for the whole weekend. I was feeling good going into the race but wasn't sure what i could expect at this stage from myself. My 1000 turned out pretty nicely. I had a nice heat and a very good semifinal where i finished just behind Anders Gustafsson and in front of Marko Tomičevič and Marcus Oscarsson. Was nice to be back into a final after almost 2 years. In the final i could repeat a good race again, holding 6th place at 200 to go, but the top guys definitelly have one more gear than me at the moment. Finished 8th, 5 seconds behind Oleg Yurenia from Belarus. Looking forward for world cup #2 in two weeks time to get an other chance to race him and a few more fast guys who were missing here! Results here.
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| Mantova 2011 |
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Racing in Mantova went well. I was really hoping the best Italians would be there too, but after their demanding national selection system in the weeeks and days preceeding the race in Mantova, noone of them was in the mood to race some more. Still lots of people racing, but it was again pretty much our whole training group taking most of the places in the Mantova final. Suzuki finished 8th, Fabio Wyss 5th, Rok Kuk 3rd and Lovro Leban 2nd very close to me. I was pleased about my racing. I think it proved my training is going well and same time showed me on what i should work from here on. So not much news from the water, but as sailors say about seas, no news is good news! Last third of the race in Mantova (photo: Stane Klemenc) 
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| Rovigo international meeting |
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Raced a 5km race this Saturday in the italian town of Rovigo. 28 senior men on the line, but we were left in 5 soon after the start. It became a very tactical race with lots of speed ups, slow downs, wash fuck ups and small crashes (a 150 degreece buoy turn 50m (!) before the finish line doesen't help here). In the second part of the race my forearms started to blow up so i decided i would rather continue to stay up in front, push and rather try keep a good techinque than watch for a good wash. At the end noone really went for the finishing sprint surprisingly and it was up to me and Nicolo Ripamonti from the italian national team to see who will attack the last buoy better. He got it much better from the outside lane and justly won the race. Not an amazing race for me but a great session and a nice day on the same spot where i had done one of my first races ever exactly 20 years ago (and finished 2nd than too)! Results here. 
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| The season is above to start |
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My 2011 racing season starts tomorrow. It is above time for it and i am really looking forward to feel the competition excitement again and start up the engine for good! I am racing tomorrow a 5k race at a Meeting in Rovigo(Italy). Next weekend (30th April&1st May) i race at the International race in Mantova, it counts as the selection race for the Italian and the Slovenian team. It is than time for World Cup race 1 (Poznan, 6-8th May) and 2 (Račice-Czech Republic, 20-22nd May). Need to produce the best results from the 2 Sloveninans who will race the World Cup, to earn my spot for this year's European championships in Belgrade (June, 17-20th ) and World championships in Szeged (August, 18-21st). The main goal of the season is ofcourse getting the qualification spot for the London 2012 Olympics. It means getting in the top 8 in Szeged. It is a realistic goal but same time a tough goal for anybody. So what starts tomorow will be a hard and exciting season. I like that! Keep following my blog – your visits and clicks are making me happy. I just got a new camera so also check soon what will be new in my picture gallery and my YouTube channel. While my Twitter acount is the best way for every day news. See you on the water! 
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| After the Kiwis comes a Samurai |
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Yasuhiro Suzuki from Japan joined us on the beggining of April on Most na Soči. He is the only Japanese 1000m paddler with high ambitions as all the rest of the national team is focusing on the newly olypmpic distance of 200m. So he joined me and the other boys on our lake to get some good training with us and will stay here for 2 months. He may not be the fastest yet but he sure likes to fight and that's how he learned my respect. Only in the first week of his visit there were a coupple of occasions already when he was really looking like he was going to pass out on training! So i believe he has some samurai blood in his veins. He's also learning quickly some slovenian and making lots of friends in the village.  
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| Early spring recap |
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Quite a buisy period the last month and a hlaf. And when things get buisy i tend to neglect my blog a bit. Guess it is how life works and sometimes it is really interesting for me to watch how you are constantly pushed to change your focus and energy between different tasks. That counts for sport and for the rest of your life and who learns to switch energy and focus between different tasks properly, will hugelly benefit from it. Early spring was good though. As intense as ever and pretty productive. Went to Skradin for a second time in beggining of March for an other 10 days of very solid training camp work. The intensity grew up a lot from the first camp in Skradin and we all really enjoyed it. Made some good progress there. The only bad part of the camp was a strange pain in my wrist that was seemingly not starting from paddling moves but caused me quite some pain while paddling. Had to use quite time and energy to treat it every evening with ice, creams and therapy… When we got home it eventually got so bad i had to stop paddling for 8 days. It was good for a bit of change as i suddenly had a lot of time for different kinds of dryland training. Sadly i had to skip the 5k nationals because of this. Was really eager to race them and have a good test of my winter work, but decided not to risk the wrist when it just looked it good well again. Watching the race from shore was no fun at all that day. When i was back in the boat again i started to feel really well. It was mid march and time to really start pushing hard. The weather this year was really helping and it was a pure pleasure being out on the water for every single session! 
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| Skradin in February |
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A very hard first paddling training camp of the year has come and gone really quick. The Croatian little town of Skradin (central Dalmatia) hosted us for the second year in a row now. Sure going to this place instead of some other fancy destinations like Florida, Australia, Sevill or the Nelo training centers is our federation's compromise between high quality work conditions and the number of people we can take to these camps. Basically at the moment with only 1 national coach we can't afford to send only a handfull of people to a very good training place, as it would mean leaving behind all the junior team and the developing U23 squad. It is a tough decision and the possible long term benefits of it will certanly not help me to race better in Szeged or London. But from the other hand (as long as i manage to purpusely ignore the twitts and blogs from athletes who train in those places) i really love going to Skradin. Dalmatia has been a destination of so many childhood hollidays for me and is a place of many special memoryes, it is the heart of the Adriatic and a real Mediterranean environment (from climate and food to the way people live here), the nature is simply outstanding, if you get just a little bit lucky the temperatures can get really sweet and sharing the hotel with so many other young athlets is very often refreshing and relaxing. Skradin is just a few hours drive away from home so it is easy to return to normal life for a few days and be back in March for a second round of tough training. After discovering that our highly fancyed rowing team with olympic champion Iztok Čop is coming here (as did the German rowing team last year with world champion Marcel Hacker) in March too, i believe we might not be talking about the warmest and calmest possible place, but indeed we do talk about a very special training fjord where some real hard training is going on and making us here discover the unlimited nature of hard core winter training every day again and again! In the first week we were blessed with some exceptional warm weather and calm seas. I managed a weekly total of 243 kilometers on the water (out of wich 192km were good paced German GA1 topped with some higher intensity sessions like speed, resistance intervals and the 5x2000m) plus 7 hours of dryland cross training. The best part of it all is that i managed a higher volume of GA1 at a consistently higher speed than last year. And that's good news for this period. I am not totally happy about my technique at the moemnt, i could do this simple left right patteren of flatwater forward strokes a bit better by now, but this is a never ending process for me anyway and normally a bit later in the season, at a bit higher speeds, things do click together a little bit better! The second week our luck with Poseidon was over, from day to day the winds started to get stronger and stronger and the quality of our paddling sessions was going down. Eventually on Thursday of the second week we decided to go home and start earlyer those easy days at home. We will than return back to Skradin in the beggining of March sooner then planned, making our second stay a bit longer. Sprinters hanging on the wash  Skradin at its best  That's how our wash lead sessions in GA1 fashion normally end up: Fabio Wyss and me against the trio of Lovro Leban, Christophe Nicolet and Rok Kuk  Lake Visovac, further up the canyon we train at  I've got influential friends who look after me 
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