Arina Kontchakov stormed to a stunning silver in the women’s junior K1 at the U23 and Junior Canoe Slalom European Championships.
The youngster qualified 10th for the final meaning that she was one of the first to go in the afternoon, but held her nerve to take the top spot for the majority of the race, before slipping back to second.
Crossing the line in 105.35s, Kontchakov was 0.45s behind Karolina Abrahamova, who blew the field away with her gold medal performance.
The Slovakian crossed the line in 104.90s, despite picking up a two second penalty on the penultimate gate.
Kontchakov adds European K1 silver to the kayak cross individual silver she won at the U23/Junior world championships last month.
“I enjoyed racing at my first European kayak final,” she said.
“Hearing my teammates cheering me on definitely pushed me to the finish.
“I’m excited for the ICF ranking race in Prague in two weeks, it’s an amazing venue where I think I can apply all my learnings from the championships this summer.”
Elsewhere, Zoe Blythe-Shields narrowly missed out on making it two Brits on the junior podium, finishing fourth in a time of 107.27s.
Czechia’s Marketa Hojdova instead crossed third for to complete the podium and pick up bronze.
Blythe-Shields already has international silverware to her name this season, having won bronze in the C1 event at the U23/Junior world championships in mid-July.
Sofia Alfer missed out on progressing to the final earlier in the day, finishing 17th in the women’s junior semi-finals.
Gwion Williams finished seventh in the men’s junior K1 event.
A speedy second half of the course saw Williams rocket up the standings to cross in a time of 93.17s.
In the U23 finals, Sam Leaver, Jonah Hanrahan and Macy Kang suffered from several penalties to finish outside the medals.
Leaver and Hanrahan both added six seconds to their times, with penalties on three gates.
The duo, who won U23 K1 team bronze earlier in the competition, finished eighth and 11th respectively.
Kang unfortunately missed gate six and picked up a 50 second penalty to finish 12th overall in the women’s final.
“It was nice to make a final in slalom after a long drought internationally,” said Hanrahan.
“I’d hoped to be a bit closer to the medals but too many hits made that more difficult than it should’ve been.
“This whole race week has given me lots of insights on what to work on to get fast for next year. The main one would be training at this high intensity more often.”