Racing has come to an end in 2022 for the Performance Canoe Slalom Team.

After a summer break, racing resumed in late August for division 1 and premier divisions. The tail end of racing sees athletes pushing as hard as they can to secure promotion to Prem or to get the highest ranking possible for the next season, some would argue it’s so they can wake up later on race day, but we know that the later you start the more information and learning you can make before your race run to perform as close to your potential as possible as well as the pride of the British ranking.

The races stretched from Grandtully, Scotland, to Llandysul, West Wales, and almost everywhere in between. The season finished with a string of British championship races, where all of our paddlers showed their class battling it out for the honours of being their age group champions with Deio Thomas J13, Gwion Williams J15 and Etienne Chappell U23 British Champions. Over the last year coaches have been working harder than ever to help engage and inspire future generations through the whole Canoe Wales pathway from club level all the way through to GB teams. 

In September we said good bye to Thomas Power our performance manager and amazing coach after an awesome 7 years coaching the Welsh squad. His role saw him progress through the pathway as a coach helping many athletes reach their potential and progress into GB teams and squads. His later work went into a management role with many career highlights including the hard task of building a COVID exit strategy for the squad as well as building more depth the the development framework. We would like to thank Tom for all his hard work and wish him well for his future ventures. Although leaving the coaching system you’ll see him on the water now at training sessions instead of on the bank, taking it back to enjoying time on the water.

The Performance Manager position has been filled by Nick Fowler-Rimel. Nick joins the team from a Kayak Sprint background where he started his journey as a Sprint athlete, onto coaching and leading the English National Talent programme. We are excited to welcome Nick to the team, with a wealth of sporting knowledge the future is already looking bright ahead!

Andy Kettlewell

Performance Coach