2015 Honourable Mentions
For the 2015 World Paddle Awards we received hundreds of nominations. Only 56 continued to the voting round of which 21 will become a finalist. Click here for the voting procedure.
Paddling is a sport with over 15 disciplines practised in seven continents and resepresented by more than eight international federations. One of the objectives of the World Paddle Awards is to show the diversity of wonderful achievements and contributions in our community. This requires several annual cycles to do so and every year there are beautiful recommendations that do not make the cut. Therefor we would like to honourably mention a few of them below.
Bogdan Chabain UKR
Bogdan is a three time European Champion in canoe sprint who also won a silver and bronze medal at the junior World Championships. Bearing in mind that the situation and training environment in the Ukraine is far from ideal at the moment, this can be seen as a very impressive achievement.
Stepanka Hilgertova CZE
No introduction needed for Stepanka, one of the best slalom athletes in the world. She competed in six Olympic Games and won 14 World Championship medals so far. [As WPA organisation we are considering how to appreciate (retired) athletes that are already competing for a 'lifetime'. We have received many other nominations in this space like for example Helmut Oblinger, David Ford and Stanislav Jezek.]
Adriene Levknecht USA
Forever pushing the limits of Freestyle and river running as top female kayaker. Constantly desiring better physically and mentally, proving a new level of female paddling. Holds the highest scoring women's ride of the 2015 ICF Freestyle World Championships and placed in top 10 of recent river running (unisex).
Sportscene.tv Global
Mentioned here more as an explanation than an 'honourable mention'. Members of the World Paddle Awards Academy and their companies cannot be nominated for the World Paddle Awards. Sportscene, Nelo (Andre Santos), Canoe Kayak Magazine (Joel Doux) and so on are excluded from the awards. We received for example also a nomination for the 'Cinco' a new boat from Nelo, which we cannot nominate.
Ugandan Men's Freestyle Kayak Team 2015
Uganda is a developing country with high rates of poverty and unemployment. These young men have inspired others by showing that with the right opportunities and effort, everyone can compete at a world class level. Most of these guys gained their skills as raft guides on the White Nile. This river is now threatened by a hydro dam and their livelihoods with it. As in most developing countries, each employed person supports a network of family so this will have a huge impact.
Eric Jackson USA
Again, mentioned here more as an explanation than an 'honourable mention'. Eric has already won the Lifetime Achievement award. This award cannot be won twice in contradiction to the other awards. For example you can win the award for Sportsman of the Year two years in a row.
Joe Glickman † USA
Joe was a writer and journalist who contributed widely to the coverage of competitive paddlesports both in the USA as well as Internationally. Joe was passionate about paddling and was publishing articles and writing pieces for competitive paddling well before anyone else was. He is most recently know for his book about Freya Hofmeister paddling around Australia. Joe competed for the USA National Marathon Team and also competed twice in the Finlandia Canoe Marathon.
World Paddle Awards are not presented post-humously. Joe unfortunately passed away this year. Instead of nominating we published a short profile.
Edina Muller GER
This is the nomination text we received for paracanoeist Edina: "Müller retired from wheelchair basketball after the 2014 Women's World Wheelchair Basketball Championship in Toronto, at which she won silver. She then took up canoeing, training at the Hamburg Canoe Club. "From basketball", she said "I learned to always have the sight set for a big goal. If something doesn’t turn out how it should, it’s not the end of the world. But it always helps to have a goal set in front of you." According to her coach, Jens Kröger, "It’s easy to motivate her. She’s fighting to reach a training target. She never gives up.” Her hard work paid off. Not only did she earn national team selection, but on 24 May 2105 she won silver in the women's KL1 200 m race at the 2015 ICF Canoe Sprint World Cup in Duisburg in a personal best time of 59.981 seconds, her first time below the one minute mark. In the 21 of August Edina Muller win Silver in Canoe Sprint World Championship qualifying once again to a Olipic Games this time in a canoe. At last in the 28 of August Edina Wins the German Championships in the 200m. It's too much in just one year."
Amelia Combes GBR
Amelia although is 14 she's kept ontop of her school work and doesn't miss a training session She's helped mentor younger children bringing in new blood to the sport. Amelia is a exceptional young lady demonstrating skills far beyond her years gaining promotion to Division 2 and showing such dedication to the sport in not just slalom but also sprint and wildwater.
Dragon Boat Pinatar Team ESP
Since 2005, Dragon boat Team PINATAR has been involved on Dragon boating, development the sport in Spain becoming one of the best Dragon boat Teams in Europe, headquarters of the Spanish Dragon Boat Association and hosting the annual Europe IDBF Dragon boat Training Camp on their facilities based in San Pedro del Pinatar (Murcia-Spain).
As explained we have received hundreds of nominations. The mentions above are also in their honour.