Nate Foster paddles a kayak built in the last century sometimes racing against competition anywhere from 2 to 5 years older than him.
“It’s not what you’d call a contemporary racing design,” said Nate Lord, one of Foster’s coaches and president of Team Colorado Whitewater Racing. “He makes up for it with incredible natural talent.”
The 13-year-old Durangoan recently competed at both the U.S. Junior National Championships for Whitewater Slalom Racing in Wausau, Wisconsin, and the Eastern Time Trials for the Junior Nationals Wildwater Team in Nantahala, North Carolina.
In Wisconsin, he finished second in the cadet class (13-and-under) for both K-1 – one person kayak – and C-2 – two person kayak – with Will Coggan of Boulder.
“It felt awesome. You go to a completely different place on a cool river you’ve never paddled before and meet a lot of awesome people,” said Foster, son of Nancy and Peter Foster, in a phone interview with The Durango Herald. “What it taught me is how to better control my boat going down different obstacles.”
Foster then took that knowledge to North Carolina three weeks later.
He competed there with other hopefuls for spots on Team USA in the ICF Junior & U23 Wildwater Canoeing World Championships, also in Nantahala later that week, but Foster had no hopes of making the team – he was too young.
Even against older competition, Foster’s results in both the sprint and classic course would have placed him fourth if he was old enough.
“I’m meeting a lot of people from Europe who came to North Carolina to paddle,” Foster said. “They’ve blown me away with their technique and power.
Foster isn’t a flash in the pan, though.
He’s a member of a group of Colorado paddlers, especially ones from Durango, who are making their mark on the national and international stages.
Most notably, Zachary “Bug” Lokken finished 21st at the ICF World Championships in 2014 and won a gold medal at the 2013 Pan American Championships.
“Durango is actually one of the centers of wildwater racing experience in the United States,” Lord said. “There’s a tremendous amount of coaching talent and experience in the Durango area.”
Few are better than Cathy Hearn, a two-time Olympian that also boasts two ICF Canoe Slalom World Championships medals.
She, John Brennan and Lord have helped coach Foster through his four years of competitive kayaking so far.
Foster started kayaking with his father around age 6.
“I kind of started on really easy rivers, and then he slowly started to get me onto harder and harder stuff,” Foster said. “It just went up like that until I met a few people at a roll practice in the (Durango Rec Center). They said they had this awesome thing called slalom racing.”
Now Foster is on the cusp of proving what he can really do with his old boat.
“I’d like to go as far as I can possibly go,” he said.
kgrabowski@durangoherald.com
