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Juniors and U23's hit Banja Luka The Junior and U23 European championships took place last weekend in Banja Luka (BIH), Peak UK team athletes Mark Proctor, Joe Clarke, Greg Pitt and Adam Burgess turned out to race.
Banja Luka was a completely new venue to all of us with this being the first major slalom race which has been held there, fortunately it wasn't the most technical course so everyone seemed to get tuned in reasonably quickly and ready to race.
The weather on the other hand certainly did take some getting used to! Flying from rainy Britain to temperatures well over 30 degrees everyday certainly has a draining effect on you. The highest temperature of the week we saw was 45 degrees and this definitely wasn't pleasant!
The first day of racing was kicked off with the K1M in the morning and the C1M in the afternoon/evening. Joe clarke got off to a solid start qualifying to the semi final in 15th place having incured a touch on the penultimate gate.
Mark Proctor and Adam Burgess were on great form in the C1M and took 2nd and 4th place qualifying easily through to the semi final.
The friday saw the C2M and K1W qualifications and the team semi finals. In C2M qualifications Burgess and Pitt paddled well and secured there place in the semi finals on saturday in a respectable 10th place.
All of the teams qualified through to the finals that would take place on the sunday, so the focus was then switched again to the individual event on saturday evening.
C2M were first up, Burgess and Pitt pur down a fast run but picked up 2 penalties, this just pushing themselves out of the top 10, so unfortunately didn't progress through to the final.
K1M were next, Joe Clarke had a sticky start to his run picking up a penalty and hitting the bottom loosing valuable time. But had a good bottom section unfortunately this wasn't enough to make the final on this occasion.
The focus then turned to Mark Proctor and Adam Burgess in the C1M semi final. Adam Burgess had some time losses on the course but managed to keep it clean but unfortunately this wasn't enough to progress to the final. Mark Proctor was the last member of the Peak UK team to race and after some time losses he placed 9th so progressed to the final which would take place later that evening.
In the final Mark Proctor delivered a clean run improving on his semi final time seeing himself finish in 4th place just outside of the medals but a great performance never the less. Well done.
In the teams GBR dominated, in the K1M timings were slightly off and with a few time errors and some touches they were off the podium. But the C2M put in a great performance to win a bronze medal! and the C1M went one better to bring home some silver!
Overall a very positive European Championships for all the Peak UK team athletes and the rest of the GBR team and hopefully we can build on our successes for next year. (Posted on the 26th Jul 2011 by Pete) |
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