Bronze at World Cup 2

I was able to make the most of the beautiful sun in Spain this week as I was only able to do 1 session this week due to a past shoulder injury flaring up again. Fortunately the rest and the large amount of time I spent training here last year were enough to get me through to claim the bronze medal. Well done to Jess Fox who claimed the gold in a great time only 5 seconds behind her K1 time (where she placed 14th!) Unfortunately Ros was not able to maintain her stella qualification and semi runs and finished in 6th position. Team Australia now begins the road trip back to Augsburg, Germany to compete in the final World Cup. Results from this weekends racing can be found here. 

Canoe Qualifications World Cup 1

The canoe qualification runs have been completed this morning and I have progressed to the semi finals in 3rd position behind Jess Fox and Nanqin Cen from China. My first run was solid however a choice to spin a combination at gate 6 proved costly in time and 2 touches further down the course put me into 3rd place. I managed to put down a faster and cleaner 2nd run, however it wasn't enough to advance me in the overall results. 

16 women competed this morning in the C1W with 7 athletes finishing within 3 seconds (raw time) of the leader! Great to see such tight racing in such a new event. Tomorrow the semi and finals will be contested on a VERY technical and difficult course. Visit this link for live results. Also, check out the interview with myself and Richard Fox here at Sportscene.

Sightseeing in Prague

We have been filling in the time between training sessions with a lot of sightseeing, team dinners and watching World Cup Soccer on the big screen in the centre square (hopefully with a better result next time!) Yann has finished designing the course for the World Cup and demonstrations will be held later tonight. 

World Cup 1 Preperations

The Australian team arrived in the Czech Republic on Saturday to prepare for the first World Cup. The course was flooded last week and the bottom third of the course has slowly been getting features back as the river continues to drop. After a solid day and a half fitting out my new boat it is finally done and looking very shmick indeed!

Preparations begin for Europe Trip 2010

Many months of hard training, racing, working and studying have been undertaken since our previous update late last year.  Selection for the Australian Team was very well contested this year, particularly in the Mens C2 class as many paddlers took advantage of the multiple class participation rule that was introduced in 2009. There were 4 very close crews battling it out for the 2 World Cup places and selection came down to a single penalty on the final run. 

Unfortunately in the final race the Guinea crew was bumped from their overall standing in 2^nd position, but will join Leanne in Europe in mid August to prepare for the World Championships.

Leanne will head over to Europe shortly to contest the 3 World Cup races before spending time training at the site of the World Championships in Slovenia.

Visit the following links for information on the upcoming international events:

World Cup 1 19^th & 20^th June; Prague, Czech Republic

World Cup 2 26^th & 27^th June; La Seu d’Urgell, Spain

World Cup 3 3^rd and 4^th July; Augsburg, Germany

World Championships 9^th – 12^th September Tacen, Ljubljana, Slovenia