 Rusty Rages at Rodeo Pre-Worlds
Rusty wasn't rusty in New Zealand. Taking the time Down Under to go up and over the competition, 17-year-old junior Rusty Sage of Orangevale, Calif., took home the rodeo crown at December's 1998 Rodeo PreWorld Championships on New Zealand's Waikato River. "The whole reason I decided to compete with the seniors was just to humble myself and learn something," he says. "I knew I was pretty good on a national scale, but I wanted the experience of getting my ass kicked by the big boys. I guess it kind of backfired." That could well be the understatement of his here-to-now short-lived kayaking career. Held on a giant breaking wave on the Waikato's Full James Rapids, the PreWorlds are the dress rehearsal for the Rodeo World Championships, to be held at the same site this December. Because of that, it drew a Who's Who of top-notch rodeo paddlers the world over, each trying his or her hardest to wind up on top. But it was Sage, a decade younger than the majority of attendees, who stole the show. And he did so the same way competitors in other classes wound up on the podium: consistency. A new finals system required competitors to push themselves while still playing it safe. For the 90 male competitors, the 20 semi-final spots were selected on scores from the best three out of four rides. The top 20 then took two rides each, which whittled the field down to 10. The system continued until just two exhausted paddlers were left, Sage and Germany's Ollie Grau. "Ollie had a great ride in the finals," says Sage. "But I had a routine going and I just stuck to it. I can't even remember what I did in the ride--I just kept moving. "The key to the new system," he adds, "was being average. Not being the worst, but not being the best. You didn't want to do too good on one run because then you would be exhausted for the next." That fate might well have been what kept 1993 World Rodeo Champion Eric Jackson from the podium. In the preliminaries, he had by far the best run of the weekend, racking up a whopping 750 points with the judges' new multiplicator point system. In contrast, Sage's final run tallied 259 points compared to Grau's 237. "Eric had by far the best, single-highest scoring ride of the entire event," says Sage. "He doubled, tripled and even quadrupled other people's scores." It's not the results or rule changes, however, that most competitors will remember. More likely it will be New Zealand's friendly people, gorgeous countryside and, of course, the nearby Kaituna River--which competitors flocked to after surviving their energy-depleting heats. "It's a mile and a half of pure play," says Sage, who ran it up to three times a day once the competition was over. "I was pretty pooped after the competition, but after resting up I paddled it everyday--it was nice to just hang out and not worry about competition." --The new Rodeo Worlds rules are available at www.worldkayak.com. --Paul Villecourt RESULTS Men's K-1 1 Rusty Sage USA 2 Olli Grau GER 3 Corran Addison RSA/CN Women's K-1 1 Deb Pinneger GBR 2 Brooke Winger USA 3 Jamie Simon USA Junior Men's K-1 1 Helge Westeraas NOR 2 Aiden Lynch IRL 3 Skay Arne Randen NOR C-1 1 Allen Braswell USA 2 Eric Jackson NZL 3 Paul Eames USA OC-1 1 Mark Scriver CAN 2 Schorschi Schauff GER 3 Paul Eames NZL
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