Great Britain complete their third day of the U23 and junior Canoe Sprint World Championships, showing some strong development across the team.
Xavier Hinves (SOU), Dylan O’Connor (RIC), Benji Cabrera (FOW), and Tom Holland (WEY) sped through their U23 men’s K4 500m B final race to clinch the number two spot.
Only 0.67 seconds behind the Norwegian team Dylan O’Connor comments on their race:
“We got off the start much better so that was really nice and just flew through.
“It hurt to be overtaken by the Norwegian’s but overall we’re really happy with it.”
The junior men’s K4 500m crewboat of Tom Hatton (RIC), Sam Dickson (FOX), Olivier Mazur (RDG), and Freddie Heard (EXE) came in fifth in their B final this afternoon.
Finishing in 1:24.85, the quartet managed to take 3.93 seconds off of their initial race time during heats.
“It was good, I think we were the youngest out there so we took it as a time trial to do as well as we could,” says Sam Dickson.
“The race was purposeful and passionate.”
Kristina Armstrong (SPS) secured a place in the B final of the U23 women’s K1 500m, coming in fifth place. She misses out on the A final, with 0.69 seconds between her and Spaniard Lucia Val in fourth.
In the U23 men’s K1 1000m semi-final, Gabriel Popham-Coveley (NOT) completed the race in 3:35.60, placing fifth.
He will be back in action in tomorrow’s K1 500m semi-final, which previously saw him at the top of his heat.
For the juniors, Dianora De Bilio (ROY) finished in sixth position with a time of 1:58.84, and will compete in her age group’s K1 500m B final.
Both Armstrong and De Bilio are still set to race in their respective K1 200m semi-finals tomorrow morning.
Hatton also finished in sixth place in the junior men’s K1 1000m semi-final and will advance to the B finals with his time of 3:41.78.
He finished his race 0.84 seconds ahead of the current World Champion, Poland’s Alex Borucki, who claimed the title with 3:42.62 in last year’s A final.
Isaac Aveson (RIC) came in eighth during the junior men’s K1 200m B final. The race was close with just 2.55 seconds separating first and ninth place.
Great Britain’s last race of the day saw Annie Bates (RIC) compete in the junior women’s K1 1000m.
With a time of 4:17.84, Bates finished the race in eighth position, 0.08 seconds behind Margarida Gomes of Portugal.
Saturday morning will see more semi-finals taking place (09.25am), before moving onto C, B, and A finals in the afternoon.
The schedule and live results can be found here.
Or to watch the racing, the livestreaming will be available for members on the Planet Canoe YouTube channel.