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Team GB[/caption]
(by Richard Hounslow- C2M)Apologies for this slightly late update on the travels of the Canoe Slalom Olympic Team.......I'll just stick with better late than never instead of making up a lame excuse!
There has been a lot of noise about the construction progress, or lack there of, for the Rio Olympics. All the while, the slalom scene has been closely following a patch of land north west of Rio de Janeiro. It is here, in the Deodoro Olympic Park, where the white water stadium has been built and is good to go for the 2016 Rio Olympic Games. I'll admit it's not 100% complete, but the water is running and the organising committee were confident enough to invite athletes over for the Olympic Test Event and training at the end of 2015.
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The Rio 2016 slalom course[/caption]
Having made the decision to select our Olympic Team early, we were a small elite group compared to most of the nations who are still battling it out for that one Olympic spot. This helped us for the test event, where there was an initial elimination round to reduce the field to Olympic numbers. For most nations, this meant only one boat from three could compete in the actual test event. With all 4 of our boats safely through, we could turn our attention to the heats.
There wasn't too much drama for the Brits, with all 4 boats once again progressing through to the semi-final. The standout result coming from the machine that is David Florence, qualifying 1
st in C1M ahead of world number 1, Benjamin Savsek (SLO).
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Dave Florence top of the men's C1 podium[/caption]
David was in no mode to let his foot off the gas, taking the clean sweep by winning the semi-final and final and claiming a dominant Gold!
In the K1M, Joe Clarke matched David's win in the semi-final, but had to settle for 7
th in the final.
In the afternoon, Britain had two more finals and two more medal chances in the C2M and K1W. Despite a raging rain storm, David and I teamed up in the C2 final and put a solid run together to take the lead, only to be pipped by the last crew down the course. But we were happy with our performance and happy with the Silver medal.
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C2 podium: Rich and Dave just missing out on top spot![/caption]
Closing out the test event was the K1W. Fiona Pennie was on for another British medal in the final, but she was on the wrong side of a marginal judging call and was awarded a 50 second penalty.
In conclusion, a solid performance for TeamGB. 4 finals and 2 medals is a great platform to build from over the next 8 months. (ONLINE RESULTS:
http://www.canoeicf.com/rio-2015-olympic-test-event)
Much like this article, we were thrown straight into the test event. But once that had ended, we had two weeks to take in the course and it's surroundings. So a little about the course.....it's smaller than the London Olympic course, with a single main drop near the bottom. It's straight, which is very different to most new artificial courses. Beyond that, it is difficult to go into specifics because there are still tweaks being made, with the final configuration to be fixed by the end of the next training camp in March. But considering only 18 months ago there was talk about moving the canoe slalom event to Foz do Iguacu, the Brazilians have done an incredible job to build a top quality Olympic white water course!
BRING ON 2016!!!
