The competition's getting hot, hot, hot for the Canoe Wales Slalom Team!

Following on from last week’s European Canoe Association (ECA) cup race in Krakow, the Performance team flew onto Prague for another exciting week of training with a race just outside the city in the picturesque town of Roudnice Nad Labem. Unfortunately Sam Rice-Jones couldn’t join the team for the second week so enjoyed his final day in Krakow with his family before flying home. After another week of training and culture between 2 training sites, Prague and Roudnice, the team we’re once again ready to race and see how well they could perform at another new race venue. Some stand out moments for the week were training in Prague with the Junior and U23 Czech canoe slalom team! An impressive site in itself, let alone the opportunity to train next to them! And we mentioned missing the heatwave last week… we paid for that with back to back days of 40+ degree weather!

Day 1

Onto day 1 of racing, with the same format from last weekend's race. The top 2/3 would go from qualifications into the final. With cloud cover the whole day being a welcome surprise for the team, a change from the hot and humid conditions the rest of the week. 

Starting with the K1 Men and once again a full contingent safely through to the finals! Well done Fin, Oli and Gwion! With Sennah Nader Humphries (Wyedean/ Seren Dwr Canoe Club) the only K1 Women on the trip the margins were tight and a couple of mistakes on the fast technical course ending up with 104 seconds in penalties and outside of the qualification. After a long afternoon watching all the 420 racers, finals were underway with Fin Yates Jones (Llandysul Paddlers) putting down a blistering run and even with a 2 second penalty he earned another podium of the trip in 3rd place! Well done Fin! 

Next up Oli Cooper (Seren Dwr) in the J18 category putting down the pace but cutting the margins too much giving him a 50 second penalty on the final upstream, finishing 19th place.

The final Welsh racer in the final was Gwion Williams (Llandysul Paddlers) in the J16 category, showing his class the whole way down the course and keeping penalty free to take a very respectable 6th place! 

Overall, a good first day of racing with lots of learning and experience gained by all ready for day 2 of racing. 

Day 2

Day 2 of racing saw the disappearance of the clouds and return of the heat. With the K1 Men racing early in the morning it was all guns blazing from the get-go with Fin starting the racing off again for team Wales! Unfortunately a miscalculation of the currents at gate 3 proved costly for Fin picking up a 50 second penalty, despite the fast run time in slalom there’s no room for errors at this level and the 50 second penalty leaving Fin in 9th place and outside qualifying for the finals in the afternoon. 

Oli, Gwion and Sennah learning from Fins mistakes all put solid runs down and qualified for the finals. Oli would be first off in the finals today and a fast pace was set by Oli, once again picking up penalties pushing him down the rankings still into an impressive 16th position. Gwion followed shortly after but unfortunately following his team mates lead also picking up too many penalties for the top positions despite the fast pace, 20th place today.

Last off and after almost 10 hours of racing was Sennah, putting down a very smooth and solid run to wrap up the weekend of racing for the Canoe Wales team with a 10th place! Well done!

That wraps up the racing part of the summer trip, now they fly onto France to join the whole slalom programme in L'Argentiere la Bessee and Bourg St Maurice for more training, this time in the glacial fed rivers of the French alps.

Written by Andy Kettlewell, Canoe Wales Performance Coach