World Cup campaign blown off track

Up the creek without a paddle?
Try down the road without a boat, paddle or anything remotely resembling a flotation device.
Tauranga kayaker Mike Dawson's build-up to the whitewater world championships in Australia next month hit the skids when he and his travelling companions lost $20,000 of boats and paddles in France.
Dawson, his C1-paddling brother James and Napier's Aaron Osbourne were in Europe for three World Cup races when a wind gust blew their kayaks off the car.
"It was 3am on the French autobahn, on our way to the final World Cup event in Sau, Spain, when a wind gust came across the road, causing our roof racks to fall off. On the roof racks were all our boats, paddles and gear. We looked back just in time to see everything cartwheeling down the road. The boats and paddles were hit by three cars and smashed to pieces by trucks before we could stop and get them off the road," Dawson said.
Three boats, worth $3000 each, disintegrated and every paddle splintered, including three new paddles Dawson had purchased for the World Cup.
"We couldn't even find Aaron's boat and presumed it was carried away on the front of a truck. The driver wouldn't have even known until he stopped and the kayak fell off."
Police arrived and the Kiwi trio were forced to leave their boats in pieces on the side of the motorway.
Dawson, who arrived back in New Zealand last week, begged and borrowed in Spain before scraping together enough money to buy a new kayak and paddles to bring home.
"The French were really helpful and the Olympic champion gave me a boat to train in. It helped that I'm 70kg, the average weight for a paddler, so it was easier to get hold of gear."
The trip to Europe was Dawson's first venture into the senior ranks after a highly successful junior career that included 10th at the junior world championships last year.
The Kiwi trio trained in Germany for 10 days then headed to Athens for the first World Cup race on last year's Olympic course, followed by another crack at the Augsburg World Cup (Dawson was 44th there last year) and the last World Cup event in Sau.
After training superbly with former Olympic champion, German Thomas Schmidt, Dawson said his World Cup form never hit the same heights.
He said the low point came in Augsburg, where he was on the cusp of making the semifinals before a mistake forced him out by a solitary second. He bounced back in Sau, finishing 29th out of 80 paddlers.
Dawson is now studying in Palmerston North and will be training on the world-class Mangahou River slalom run leading up to the world championships in Penrith on September 29.
Dawson spent a month paddling on the Olympic course last summer and will head back next week for another two-week stint. "By the time the world champs roll around I'll have been to Penrith three times, so I won't lack any preparation."
He hopes for a top-20 slalom finish at the worlds.