Unleashed

The Way of the Wild card

Unleashed is an annual extreme kayaking competition, held in different places all over the world, for which one has to be invited. Since it has always been organised in places I could not go because of visa issues, I was so excited that in 2012 Unleashed was organised in Jinja, Uganda, my home town and on my river, the White Nile. Later that year the Ugandan government had planned on finalising the third dam, so the organisers wanted to make sure that all extreme kayakers would make use of some rapids that would after disappear.

Earlier that year, Red Bull contacted me to ask if I was interested in participating in a documentary series. Their aim was to find four extreme sporters around the world, who had come from unexpected backgrounds. I was one of them. They came to Uganda to record my life; my family, my house, my hometown and of course my kayaking. The competition was held on the biggest water the White Nile has to offer. I am very proud of the way I performed in a competition with only the most die hard kayakers in the world. See it all in this video.

The experience of being filmed for the first time was very interesting. I remember I had to ask my brother if he wanted to be recorded as my younger version, I remember having to say the same thing over and over again and the whole thing being exhausting. However, I couldn’t be happier about the result! Even though the end-good-all-good and zero-to-hero aspect of the movie does not 100% the truth of my life right now as an Ugandan paddler.