Young canoeists from Stafford and Stone Canoe Club on Westbridge Park took part in a World Cup tournament in Bratislava as part of a GB Canoeing development team. Thanks to Dave Royle for this report…
As the World Championships will take place very shortly in Prague, GB Canoeing decided to take a development team of mostly under-23s to the finals of the World Cup Series at Bratislava. The team included Stafford and Stone Canoe Club members Emily Woodcock paddling Women’s Kayak and Women’s Canoe, Mikey Wilson and Tom Brady paddling Men’s Kayak and Jazz Royle paddling Women’s Canoe. The team had a productive week’s training on the course in preparation for the event on one of the toughest race venues in Canoe Slalom which includes a daunting three-metre drop called “Niagara” at the end of the course.
When the qualification course was set it became clear that the organisers wanted to test the athletes to the maximum by designing a difficult and challenging course. In Women’s Canoe (C1W) Jazz struggled with the course, but battled through to qualify in 16th,while Emily managed a very creditable 7th position after two solid runs in her first World Cup in C1W. In the other classes, however, things were different and, despite strong performances, no other Stafford and Stone paddlers progressed to semi-finals.
The following day Jazz and Emily took their positions on the start line. The course had been changed for the semi-finals and finals and was even harder than the previous day and Jazz was the first to test the difficulty of the challenge. Jazz managed to achieve an impressive time which held her in the lead through most of the semi-finals. Similarly, Emily passed through the course with few errors and was also on line to pass through to the finals until, at the last moment, she made an error below Niagara and unfortunately missed the last gate putting her out.
The event finals started with 10 Women Canoe qualifiers from around the world. The course was difficult and competitor after competitor made mistakes. When Jazz’s run came she paddled solidly once more and delivered a time over 3 seconds ahead of her semi-final run putting her in 2nd place with two competitors left to go.
Jess Fox (AUS), daughter of Stafford and Stone’s Richard Fox, paddled a near perfect final run and put herself in the lead with one paddler left to go. Rosalyn Lawrence (AUS) was next and as she passed down the course her split times showed she was behind Jess but marginally ahead of Jazz. However, when she reached gate 18 she used her paddle to push away from the side. Her paddle stuck in the wall, and she was forced to drop backwards through the gate and incur a 50 second penalty or go down “Niagara” without her paddle. A fifty second penalty and a time slower than Jazz’s meant Ros would not get a medal, after all.
“This morning I was quite happy to make the final so, when I reached the finish and I was guaranteed fourth, I was already pretty pleased,” said Royle. “So when she (Rosalyn) unluckily got her penalty I couldn’t believe I had got bronze.
“I’ve been quite disappointed with my results so far. I’ve had the speed to win and I’ve been paddling really well in my races but have messed up just one move each time. So, to come here in a senior race and to finally deliver two runs and come away with bronze is fantastic. I am confident this will help me to move forward to produce more medals in the future.”
The Canoe Slalom World Championships take place at Prague on 11-15 September and the following Stafford and Stone Athletes will be taking part:- Joe Clarke, Mark Proctor, Lizzie Neave, Adam Burgess and Greg Pitt. We wish them every success.
