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Pennie wins Slalom Silver at World Cup #1 After a week’s rest at home following the cancelled European Championships, the PeakUK Slalom Team headed out to Prague for the first of this year’s World Cup races.
There were mixed results for the team in the qualifying stages. Tim and Etienne opened their World Cup campaign with a 2nd place in Qualification behind the formidable Hochschorner brothers. Greg Pitt, Huw Swetnam, Lizzie Neave and Fiona Pennie all made it through to the semi finals comfortably.
Tim and Etienne looked within reach of the medals after their semi final run which left them in 4th place, but with the 10 finalists starting from zero, effectively a clean slate, anything could happen. Unfortunately, things didn’t go to plan in the final when they lost some time and picked up a 2 second penalty for touching a gate. They had to settle for a disappointing 9th place. In the other classes racing on Saturday, Team GB didn’t produce any finalists in the Men’s C1, however Mallory Franklin made her first World Cup final on what was her 16th birthday in the C1 Women’s event, finishing in a creditable 8th place.
A disappointed Lizzie Neave had to walk away from the semi with a result that was unexpectedly below par. Unfortunately she fell foul to the cruel side of slalom where being slightly off line can punish you severely. Elsewhere in the class both Fiona Pennie and former PeakUK paddler Laura Blakeman progressed safely to the finals. Huw Swetnam missed out on an appearance in the final and came 17th in a closely fought K1 Men’s semi final.
In the final, Fiona put down a faster time but incurred a 2 second penalty on the tricky upstream gate 19. Slotting into 2nd position at the end of her run, 0.11 seconds behind World Champion, Jasmin Schornberg, she had to patiently wait at the finish line for the remaining 5 paddlers to complete their run. Unexpectedly, times did not improve. Jana Dukatova, the clear winner of the semi final and last down the course, was left struggling when her spraydeck came off in gate 6. It was obvious at this point, that Fiona was to take the silver medal, her 3rd World medal on Prague in 5 years. Laura Blakeman came away with a personal best of 4th place.
The PeakUK Team now moves onto La Seu d’Urgell in Spain, the site of the 1992 Olympics and this year’s 2nd World Cup race. The team will be hoping for good results using their experiences of the World Championships at the same venue last year, which for Lizzie, included a bronze medal in the individual event. Fiona, who failed to make the GB Team in kayak last year, but raced in the C1 Women demonstration event, will be looking forward to taking on the course with 2 blades rather than 1!
For full results of the Prague World Cup race check out www.slalomtroja.cz/en/live-results. Video of every run can also be seen at http://www.slalomtroja.cz/en/video-2010
To follow World Cup Race #2 this coming weekend check out http://canoeslalomseu.parcolimpic.com/
Words by Fiona Pennie.
 (Posted on the 23rd Jun 2010 by timb) |
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