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D a t e o f B i r t h : 29:1.1985
H o m e t o w n ( C o u n t r y ) : Bratislava / Slovakia
L o c a l P l a y s p o t : Cunovo SVK
F a v o r i t e R i v e r : Zambezi
F a v o r i t e M o v e : Air screw
B e s t a c c o m p l i s h m e n t s : 2nd place World championship 2007 , 1st place World cup 2008...
W e b s i t e : www.vajdafreestyle.com , www.peter-csonka.blogspot.com , www.adidas-sickline.com |
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S p o n s o r s :     
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BIO: My mom was an athlete. She was a runner and went to a sports high school. She was also into cycling and she still did a lot of sports when I was a child. She took me everywhere, skiing for instance. I think her passion got me into sports. When I was 4 years old, my Mom put me into a skiing club. Then I saw Kung Fu movies and I wanted to do karate, so I joined a karate club, but it got boring after a while. My friend told me that he was in a canoe club which organized a lot of trips and training camps for young people. So I gave it a try and I enjoyed it. We were traveling and training together and we had winter training every day with professional trainers, like muscle training in the gym, running and so on. When I was 13, we started floodwater racing - that is similar to adventure racing – and we won international competitions. We also did rafting races, and we represented Slovakia in international contests. I competed in rafting events until I was about 17. We competed in the men’s category - and we won the races! But after a few years it got boring. It was also hard to coordinate six people. I had to tell them to go to the gym and train, because I knew most about training methods. One day I realized that I rather wanted to sit in a kayak and I quit rafting. I had many good friends with whom I creeked in Corse and all over Europe. In-between those trips I was training in whitewater. I bought a little boat for freestyle and started with freestyle. Today, we have professional coaches, Olympic coaches. They came from slalom racing and they set up our winter training. I arrange our summer training and I train my girlfriend, Nina Halasova, as well. I study physical education and I am at the end of the second year now. Like my Mom, I went to a sports high school and I’m a physical trainer in third class. I’ve been doing sports all my life. However, I’m not sure if I want to work as a trainer. When I am older I might do something in a federation and try to push kayak freestyle a little bit to get some government funding. It is a very expensive sport and young people often cannot afford it. If kids have to pay for their equipment, it is almost impossible to start with the sport. We were lucky, because we were in a club. However, I don’t know if there are still any clubs like that in Slovakia. Currently I am pursuing a professional career. My goal is to win the worlds. I paddle every day, sometimes twice a day and therefore I don’t have time for anything else. I’ve already missed some classes. But I am used to that routine. I’ve been training my whole life. When I am at home, I get bored. In fact, I get crazy. I always need to do something. Even when I have a few days off, I still train. I guess I have too much energy. I also enjoy creeking very much. Most people don’t know that, but I don’t have many friends who creek. Two years ago, I had a very bad experience – my friend died right in front me. We were six people in the river and I was behind him. He knew the river very well and was the first to go down. He wanted to show us a jump on the right, but unfortunately there was a tree in the jump which we couldn’t see it from above. We took him out, but it was too late. He had a fracture in his skull and we couldn’t reanimate him. He left two children and a wife behind. It was terrible. I don’t know if I ever want to paddle that river again. I was right behind him and dislocated my shoulder, but I was back in the water after two weeks. However, my first whitewater experience after this incident was not until one year later in the US. It was not so extreme, just five meter waterfalls. My respect for water hasn’t changed, because I have always had high respect for water. From time to time I have bad dreams, though. I still enjoy going down rivers that are challenging. Not too extreme, but challenging. However, I don’t like to be first on descents; I prefer seeing someone go down in front of me. When I am creeking with Nina I get nervous, because I am petrified that something could happen to her. We are 24/7 together. We have been together for four and a half years now and we are still not sick of each other. In fact, it is great that we can do everything together. We travel together, we train together, we are class mates and we live together. As her coach it is sometimes a bit hard to train Nina, because she doesn’t always listen. But in our private life we don’t have any problems. Nina wants to paddle as much as possible. She loves children, but with both of us paddling so much we don’t have time for kids. And as a kayaker you don’t earn much. My mom is working really hard to support us. She is a single raising mom working as a massage therapist. In fact, my mom is working so hard that she never has time to give me a massage. Kayaking is my passion and my lifestyle. I love the traveling part and I love being in the water. I have looked into other freestyle sports like snowboarding or skating, but I liked the water so much that I started with kayak freestyle. And whitewater kayaking is the best sport in the world. You are outdoors with your friends. You need to trust them when you are out on the water and you have a great time in the evening. Strengths I train very hard, and I am very good in my sport. And I keep my nerves in a competition when it comes to a battle.
Weaknesses I paddle too much, so I don’t have any energy left for competitions. I just love paddling so much, that I cannot moderate myself. Source www.adidas-sickline.com
 
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