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GB Slalom Team Selection Last weekend saw high drama at the National Water Sports Centre in Nottingham as the GB slalom elite raced off over two days to decide who would be representing GBR at the World Champs this year. With only three entries per category tight racing was expected and the races delivered just that. Off the back of a dominant showing in Grandtully the Peak UK Slalom Team were all favourites to make the team but as is always the case in such a dynamic sport nothing was guaranteed.
First to be decided was the men's kayak class in which Peak Team athlete Huw P Swetnam had promoted himself to hot favourite by winning both races in Grandtully. Huw managed to continue his run of form with 1st, 2nd and 4th place finishs being enough to qualify for the team in 2nd overall. Congratulations to Huw on a super solid comeback from a disappointing season last year.
The womens kayak class was expected to be the fiercest race of the weekend with 4 very fast women racing for three places. In the build up races all 4 girls were often within a second of each other. Beijing Olympian and Peak athlete Fiona Pennie was still a solid favourite for the team but in the event it was not to be. Very surprisingly she missed out when Laura Blakeman won the last race by 0.2sec. Harsh times, we're really disappointed for Fiona but for sure she'll bounce back even faster and might even be spotted in a C1 this summer!
Tim Baillie and Etienne Stott managed to continue their string of domestic wins narrowly taking first in all three races to qualify for the Team. Elsewhere in the C2 race Peak UK employee Paul Ramsdale and his partner Gaz Wilson put in a solid weekends racing to qualify for the U23 team, congratulations to them.
Next up for the Slalom Team: The European Championships in Nottingham!!
Check out more action pics in the Photo Gallery.
Full Results:
2009 GB Selection Race 1
2009 GB Selection Race 2
2009 GB Selection Race 3
Words by Tim, photos by David Leathborough. (Posted on the 10th May 2009 by timb) |
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