By Saturday evening, Pelly Vincent-Braun knew that all of his hard work had paid off.

On the rushing whitewater of the Class II+ Kananaskis River, about 40 minutes west of Calgary, Vincent-Braun paddled to a second-place finish in the junior C-1 category last weekend.

“It went perfect,” he said. “I had great runs and I’m happy with how I performed.”

Vincent-Braun qualified for his second junior world championships with a pair of races Saturday. Although racing continued Sunday, with his fast times and top-three rank, he knew he had qualified no matter what the result would be Sunday.

The pressure came off.

“I was able to throw down a clean run,” he said. “Not fast, but clean.”

Team Alberta coach Thea Froehlich, who worked with Team Yukon during the race said that Vincent-Braun paddled well.

“He was looking pretty consistent and he’s super super strong,” she said.

Whitewater slalom kayaking sees athletes weaving their way through a numbered course as they also navigate the river’s rapids. If an athlete, or any part of their boat or paddle touches the suspended gates, they are given a two-second penalty. If they miss a gate, it’s a 50-second penalty. The time it takes you to complete the course is tallied with your penalties to give your final time. A clean run means incurring zero penalties, an important, but sometimes rare feat for racers.

Vincent-Braun, who will age out of the junior category at the end of this season, was joined by junior team trials rookie Mael Provonost.

Provonost, who turns 15 this year said he had a lot of fun at the races.

“I did a lot better than I had hoped I’d ever be able to do with the amount of training I had,” he said.

He finished ninth out of a field of 13.

The Yukon duo also competed in the C-2 category, which they had trained in a handful of times leading up to trials.

“It was a gong show the first couple runs,” said Vincent-Braun. But they eventually got it under control and had an almost clean run on a notoriously “touchy” course. While they were first in the category, they didn’t meet the time requirement to qualify that boat for the junior national team.

“I think they have pretty good potential in C-2,” said Froehlich. For jumping in a pretty old boat they’ve never been in, I was pretty happy with how they did.”

This wasn’t the first time the Yukon duo had raced at the Kananaskis River. They have both attended training camps at the course, which was heavily changed during the 2013 floods, which wrecked havoc in southern Alberta. And last fall they also attended Alberta Provincial Championships.

Vincent-Braun and Provonost were in Alberta for the week leading up to the event to train on the bigger whitewater.

Once the race’s course is set, athletes also don’t get to paddle it, so during training they try to get around to all parts of the river, sit in all the eddies to see how they behave and do a myriad of gate combinations down the course.

Another important part of training is race simulation, where athletes run a mock full-length course to see how it feels pacing-wise. Vincent-Braun missed out on the fulls, and said he definitely felt it on his first run, but with a quick modification to his pacing, he was good to go for the next race.

Both boys will continue to train in the Yukon for the rest of the season.

An Alberta athlete will run a training camp in Whitehorse at the end of the month.

Vincent-Braun, meanwhile has a busy month ahead as he graduates high school and heads off to Poland for the junior world championships taking place July13 to 17.