Team GB head over to Bratislava for World Cup 2
With most of the GB Senior Squad preparing for the World Championship in La Seu in Spain at the end of September, it opened up spots for the up and coming development athletes to gain some more experience racing on the international stage. With only 4 days of training for some of the athletes, Friday commenced the start of racing with the heats, the course been set and demos done on Thursday evening. C1M and K1W were off in the morning.
GB were off to a good start with Tom Abbott flying through to the semi-final on Saturday with a blistering run placing him 4th. Team mates William Smith and William Coney not quite making it through on first run, seen them racing again for their place in the semi-final. Both boys put down faster runs but just missed out on the top 10 placing 12th and 13th. Kayak woman saw Sophie Ogilvie go through to the semi-final on first runs qualifying in 18th place despite having two touches. Megan Hamer Evens found some difficulty around gate 23, acquiring a 50 second penalty forcing her to race again. However, Megan smashed her second run placing 4th joining Sophie in the semi-final. Amber Maslen having had to do a second run put a clear second run down, improving on her first run however the tough competition placed her 13th missing out on that semi-final.
Onto the afternoon racing with C1W and K1M. Sophie Ogilvie was back on the start line along with fellow Scot Eilidh Gibson and training partner Bethan Forrow. With all three girls putting high standing performances down, placing 4th, 5th and 10th saw them all advance to the semi-finals on Sunday. The men’s Kayak heats finished the day off with more good news for Ciaran Lee Edwards putting a fast and clean run down placing 22nd and going through to the semi-finals. Etienne Chappell and Huw Swetnam having some trouble on their first runs meant they had to go again. Chappell making his first debut at a senior world cup, paddled outstanding finishing 8th and securing his spot in the semi-final. Huw Swetnam also going clean and faster but sadly it is not quite enough to see him through.
Sophie added "It was such a tough course. The gates were sitting quite awkwardly given the way the water was flowing at the top, so you were reliant on making sure your boat was in the exact place for the wave to set you up right. There were some different moves than normal too. The top two thirds of my run was bang on to the plan we had set, but I just got carried away at the bottom drop and it took me a while to get the boat back round for the upstream and lost a big chunk of time.”
Sunday and the final day of racing saw the C1W start off, with all 3 boats in semi-final. Beth Forrow was off first but a fault on the course delayed the running order by 15 minutes, setting back the last 12 competitors. Unfortunately for Beth a miss communication on the start line meant she was awarded a re-run and went off at the end of the class. However, she gained a 50 second penalty at 5 gate knocking her out of contention for the final. Ogilvie and Gibson managed to put respectable runs down on the testing course and successfully make it through to the final in 7th and 6th place. Ogilvie, 4th off in the finals, had put down a pretty smooth and composed run together on the majority of her run but ran into of trouble around gate 17 and was given a 50 second penalty knocking her off the podium and into 9th place. Gibson was off straight after Ogilvie, and managed to put another decent run down, but lost time paddling back for a gate she placed 6th with a 2 second penalty.
Eilidh added "I feel very proud of myself getting through the last year of rehab. A lot of my racing was really good and in the final today I was up at the second split by 3.5 seconds. I just had two mistakes which cost a lot of time down the bottom, but in general I am super happy."
In the Kayak Men semi-final, Etienne Chappell and Ciaran Lee Edwards both found it tough to deliver the runs needed to process through to the finals. Overall placing in 25th and 27th. The Team now head over to World Cup 3 in Tacen with Bradley Forbes-Cryans and Joe Clark joining them.
