After our first two days of racing in unpredictable weather reaching temperatures in the mid 30’s with threatening thunder showers, we have four paddlers that have made the semi finals!
Our U23 C1 paddlers started the event off on a very difficult C1 course. James Thwaite, Callum Gilbert and Patrick Washer all had two attempts at making the semi finals in a field of 60. James had an exciting first run with loosing his paddle for a couple seconds placing 53rd and his second run put him in 36th place. Callum Gilbert hopped into Otis’ boat for the first run which put him in 38th place and used Kaydi’s boat for his second run which placed him 31st. Patrick Washer had two solid runs. He placed 29th in the first run (only the top 20 went thru directly to the semis) and placed 12th in his second run, just missing out on the top 10 going thru to the semis.
Our junior C1 paddlers experienced their first world class event. It was exciting watching them paddle on this very difficult C1 course. Out of 58 competitors, Callum Aitken placed 53rd, Otis Rayner placed 52nd, and Josh Bell placed 46th in their first runs. Josh had a great second run improving his time by 19 seconds to place 23rd, Otis placed 31st, and Callum 37th.
Our K1 teams - both U23 and Junior - were very successful today. Finn Butcher took out the field of 75 and placed 2nd. Jiri Prskavec, the European Champion and the Czech Republic’s 2016 olympian, beat him by 1.76 seconds. Callum Gilbert also put down a great run and placed 10th. Both Finn and Callum go directly to the semis on Friday. Theo Pepper placed 55th in his first run and 45th in his second. Very tough competition for the paddlers here and Theo was right in all the action with a borrowed boat and short build up to the event.
Our two junior paddlers, Zac Mutton and Callum Aitken, both made it into the semis on their first runs! Very exciting stuff when both of them could have been a lot cleaner. In the field of 79, Zac placed 24th with 10 penalties and Callum placed 27th with 8 penalties. We are all looking forward to Friday’s Semi Finals racing starting at 10:50am for the U23 and 4:05pm for the Juniors.
Kaydi O’Conner-Stratton and Kelly Travers raced well today. The top 15 paddlers went thru to the semis in the first run and the top 5 went thru in the second runs. Kaydi placed 28th in her first run and 18th in her second run. Kelly placed 27th in her first run and 12th in her second run.
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