Slalom Selections at Lee Valley - 16-18 April

Over the Easter weekend in Lee Valley, the Canoe Wales Performance Slalom athletes were competing in a 3-day race series. We were fortunate to have lovely sunshine over the 3 days giving perfect racing conditions.

Our athletes performed well over the weekend, highlighted by Etienne Chappell making the GB U23 team. After a strong selection race producing consistent performances all weekend, he finished 3rd in the U23 Rankings. We had some strong performances from all our athletes, with the format being the best 4 of 6 races. With the standard being very high, our athletes gained valuable race experience. However, all couldn’t quite produce the consistency over 4 races to also make GB teams. With Oliver Cooper producing a 3rd place finish in the K1M Junior Race 5; Sennah Nader-Humphries gaining a 2nd and 3rd Placed finish in the K1W Junior Races 5 and 1 respectively; Gwion Williams managed to produce 5 clean runs over the selection only picking up a single touch over all 6 runs; Fin Yates-Jones produced two 5th place finishes in the K1M U23 rankings. Furthermore, Sam Rice-Jones in his first selection race showed improvement over the weekend, gaining in experience to produce his best run on the last race of the competition.

The weekend was a great experience for all the paddlers racing, and with all the Junior paddlers still eligible for Junior selection next year, these are promising signs for the future. Also congratulations to someone who has had a wealth of experience racing: Will Coney, who is named reserve for the GB C1M Senior Team.

A special mention needs to go to Megan Hamer-Evans, a Welsh athlete on the GB Academy Programme, producing a stunning race series to win the U23 K1W selection and secure a place on the GB Senior team. A massive congratulations to Megan as she is the first Welsh Female athlete to make the GB Senior team in 20 years. We look forward to seeing her performance in the summer's World Cup Championships, European Championship and World Championship. Llongyfarchiadau, Meg!

Read the full results here.

You can also read the British Canoeing news announcing the full GB teams here.

 PHOTO CREDIT: © AE Photos, massive thank you for some great photos!