Words: Billy Blackman
This year’s event was held was again held on the River Tay, Aberfeldy in Scotland with over 200 competitors from universities across the UK.
The previous couple of years had seen high river levels, however this year’s levels were much lower which suited the majority of the competitors, resulting in much less work for the safety team.
Following the “sprint” and more traditional “classic” racing formats, the competition is a points based championship with each competitor gaining points for their respective university depending on their race finishing position in both races.
Day one – The “sprint”
Saturday dawned chilly but clam for the sprint race which saw competitors challenging themselves down the Forth Falls rapid at Grandtully.
With experience ranging from GB team members to some new to the sport, there was tight racing across the two runs. Many of the competitors doubled up and were racing multiple classes throughout the day.
Wild water racings golden girl Kerry Christie (Nottingham Trent) clinched the sprint win, with the top three girls all finishing within 0.4 secs of each other. Katie Pocklington 2nd (Nottingham Uni) and Molly Sandercock 3rd (Nottingham Trent).
The men were lead home by Eddie Macintosh (Sheffield), 2nd Tony Peyton-Jones (Swansea), 3rd Benji Cabrera (Nottingham Trent), again some super tight racing with the top 3 all finishing within a second of each other.
The C1 and C2 classes were also hotly contested, with the highest number of entries in a UK race for many years, again the medals being decided by a handful of seconds in each class.
Racing concluded just before dusk which saw Nottingham Trent a single point ahead of local rivals Nottingham University at the end of day one.
Day 2 – the “Classic”
The classic, the longer more traditional type of wild water race, was held on a course suitable for the majority of racers.
Starting some 400m above General Wades bridge in Aberfeldy and culminating in a short tricky upstream finish some 3km downstream at Breadlebane Canoe Club’s site.
Although less technically challenging than the previous days Forth Falls sprint course, it was no lesser a challenge for the experienced racers, and meant effective safety could be provided for those newer to the sport.
With everything to play for, the individual races were again hotly contested across both the Kayak and Canadian disciplines, with Kerry Christie winning once again, Molly Sandercock going one better to finish second and Emma Christie sneaking 3rd (Nottingham Trent) by just under a second in WK1.
The tables were turned in the MK1 race with Benji Cabrera winning this time around, Eddie Mackintosh 2nd and Toby Peyton Jones 3rd.
With Nottingham and Nottingham Trent still just a few points apart, the team race was going to decide who would be overall BUCS Wild Water Racing Champions for 2024.
Despite Nottingham taking 1st and 3rd, and Nottingham Trent only managing 2nd, the overall Title went to Nottingham Trent with 436 points, Nottingham were 2nd with 410 points and a very impressive display from Strathclyde to come home a very creditable 3rd with 294 points.
There were many successes over the weekend, not just the medal winners, with many experiencing wild water racing for the first, just completing the course for some was a huge achievement.
Congratulations must go to each competitor for some hard earned results, great racing and the many, many happy smiles crossing the finish line.
A race of this size requires a big “behind the scenes team”, so a big thank you must go to Paddle Scotland and the Scottish WWR Committee for the overall organisation, and the volunteers from the English WWR Committee who did a fantastic job with the timing and for getting the results published so quickly.
Last but not least, the biggest “thank you” must go to the safety team from Beyond Adventure, who spent all day on the water, in chilly conditions, ensuring those that did capsize were quickly and effectively rescued.
For more information on Wild Water Racing, where races are, how to get started and enter races can be found here https://www.wildwater.org.uk/