Yup. some German races are called D-Cup. The D stands for Deutschland, Germany, and they obviously didn’t think about international folks when they introduced it. D.Cups are national ranking races, and I think this one is the last one I paddled in. I capsized and it took me quite a while to roll back up. A lot of important German races are held here, but lately, there have been a lot of cancellations because of too much water - if it’s too hot, too much comes down from the mountains at once.
I know this place felt so special when I went for my first race as a junior. We got to stay in a hotel which was super unusual, and I remember walking to the course through mountain meadows full of flowers. It was awesome, and one of the ways in which paddling opened up the world to me.
They’re almost close enough to watch the races, just one row of houses and a road in the way.
A couple of years earlier when I was still training properly (must have been 2010 or 11), I borrowed a whitewater boat from someone at my university and paddled the gorge below the slalom course with some other slalom paddlers.
