The first official Swedish championship in Greenland kayak rolling – and a spectacular record

Wednesday, September 13, 2023 (Championship, kayak rolling), 2 comments

This weekend the first official Swedish championship in Greenland kayak rolling was held in Stockholm on a wonderful late summer weekend. It was a jump start into something very promising. What about a winner that surpassed everything hitherto achieved in competition before!   

The competition was anticipated with great excitement, since the level of the participants was very high, but also since the world champion from the Greenland championship 2023, Jon David Jensen, were participating in an open class.

I had the honor of being the judge for the men’s master class and was with these conditions expectant. But everything was far exceeded!

David Täng from ”Rolltokarna” in Gothenburg won the championship with sensational 370 points, which may* be a hitherto unprecedented score in an official competition. He nailed all rolls, almost all of them with full points, and paddled 21 meter upside-down! 

* There are uncertainties: walrus pull included or not, how to measure the upside-down-distance (according to Jon David Jensen, the Swedish interpretation was more strict then the Greenlandic, uncertainties about reporting (rolling results doesn’t get front pages in media) etc. David’s score did not include walrus pull that might have added another 18 points.

Here are streaming videos with a running commentary in English from the two days, on Jonas Alexandersson’s youtubekanal. 

More photos and video clips on “Roll-SM” on Facebook. Take a look at Kazper, a 20 year old who learned to roll this summer, and that now, just for fun, hand rolled an avataq – I have never seen that done before, probably since it has been considered impossible.

A great Thank You to the initiators/arrangers, Karin Åmossa, Martin Hauffman, David Täng et al, and to the crew of Fridhemskanotisterna for service during the competition. 

All results (https://kanot.com/grenar/havskajak/tavling/gronlandsroll/resultat)

More information of the background of competitive rolling, the rules, the different rolls etc on QAJAQ USA.

A few photos I manages to take between judging tasks…

Saturday morning, before evrything started

The secretariat gets ready

After the competition – a rolling class with David Täng.