Jak Fantastic smashes The 2023 ICF Freestyle World Championships
Living up to her name, Jak Fantastic has been kayaking for over a decade, and recently placed 5th in the world against able-bodied athletes.
At 35 years old, Jak grew up in Ascot and now lives in North Wales on the banks of the Ogwen, in a tiny terraced house accompanied by her trusty dog, her good friend Dave and her collection of 8 boats.
Jak got her first taste of kayaking at 6 years of age when she took out a sit-on-top kayak. “I was off out of the cove before anyone could stop me. It was the first time I had autonomy for being able to get somewhere under my own steam as I couldn’t walk. Suddenly being able to decide where to go and get there independently was so revolutionary to me.”
Jak started her competitive career in 2002 at just 13 years of age when she participated in the Hurley Rodeo which was a selection event for Team Great Britain. “Despite not really knowing what I was supposed to be doing, I ended up winning and secured a spot for the Graz World Championships in 2003”.
Jak has faced physical challenges, ranging from being born with Club Foot, to damaging her spine, to having her hips screwed into place, to being told numerous times that she would never be able to kayak again. Despite this, Jak has proved everyone wrong; she continues to push the boundaries of kayaking as a sport and inspires both men and women alike.
Jak competed at the 2023 ICF Freestyle World Championships in Columbus, Georgia, where she placed 5th in the world while challenging the reigning World Champion for C1 along with the world’s best athletes! Jak set herself the goal of being able to catch the wave and support there being in the C1 Women’s category. Jak was just happy to score some points as the feature being used was incredibly difficult, meaning that she “only managed two practice rides.”
As an athlete with a disability, kayaking was revolutionary for Jak, with paddling being where she feels most able-bodied. That said, Jak has encountered several challenges stemming from her disability, one of the biggest being walking along the riverbank, from scouting a rapid to walking back up to the top or carrying her boat. Most kayakers wouldn’t even consider these tasks to be challenging but for a young woman with a disability it has proven to be quite difficult. Jak must weigh up the dangers of running a technical rapid without seeing it or getting out of her boat to scout which she feels can be more dangerous than running the section blind. “I’d always rather run rapids blind than get out of my boat onto the banks where I’m suddenly a liability falling over everything.”
With the help of the paddling community worldwide, she has been able to overcome some of these challenges, by getting her friends to carry her boat – even once having a squad of heavily armed Indonesian police carry her boat to the start of an extreme whitewater race.
The freestyle discipline can be performed as both a kayaker (K1) or as a canoer (C1). Kayakers sit in their boats and have two blades at the end of their paddle, while canoers kneel in their boats and only have one blade. Jak has tried both disciplines and found that her unique style which compensates for having a leg weakness has worked “quite well for c1 as everyone’s on their knees and has less leverage anyway.”
Not only is Jak a seriously talented and hard-working athlete in the freestyle scene, but she also has a passion for everything that floats, recently falling in love with OC1 boating and purchasing a surf kayak to challenge herself in the waves. If this wasn’t enough, she is currently preparing for a 12-day trip with her friends Dave and Chatak, where they plan on kayaking through the Himalayas on the Brahmaputra River in India next January.
For anyone out there that would like to take up kayaking, Jaks’s advice is to “enjoy it, every time you go out on the water, it should be fun. Kayaking can be the most beautiful rewarding sport – but don’t forget your stretches”.
Although Jak has conquered a dream that only a few can say they’ve achieved, she hasn’t fulfilled all her kayaking dreams yet. When Jak was 10, she saw an article on kayaking in Nepal and this has since been a bucket list item for Jak. No doubt Jak will achieve this dream very soon!
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