Great Britain’s canoe slalom team picked up two medals on the opening day of the ECA Canoe Slalom European Championships in Paris.
Kicking off the new season – and Olympic cycle – the C1M team were victorious in the final event of the day, with the women’s K1W team picking up bronze to get the Brits off to a winning start.
Stafford and Stone’s Olympic silver medallist Adam Burgess led off the British trio, joined by his clubmate Luc Royle, who was making his senior debut along with 2023 European Games Champion Ryan Westley (Lower Wharfe).
One of the first teams off, the Brits completed the only clean run, to set an unbeatable standard.
Adam and Ryan were delighted to take the top spot, 15 years after winning the World Junior Championship together, especially for Luc in his first international season.
Adam said: “I love being back on this course. It’s really fun and it’s super cool to be European Champions
“It’s the first time we’ve won the gold medal in C1 teams as a senior, so I’m really happy with the performance and really impressed with Luc stepping up first year on the team and helping us to the gold medal”.
The women’s K1 team opened up the event for the Brits, in the first event of the Championships.
Olympic bronze medallist Kimberley Woods (Rugby), U23 K1 World Champion Lois Leaver (Edinburgh Schools) and former European U23 K1 champion Nikita Setchell were a formidable trio.
Despite a touch on gate 4, the team powered down the course to finish in third overall behind eventual winners Czechia and silver medallists, Spain.
Kimberley said: “I’m really happy that we won the bronze – it’s becoming a thing for me here!
“It was great to be out there in the team event, there was a brilliant crowd today cheering us all on.
“We’ve got a new look team for this season. It was different being the oldest member of the team, but we’ve raced together and I’m really proud that we’ve come away with the bronze and are on the podium again.”
Kimberley was back on the water with Ellis Miller (Lee Valley) and Bethan Forrow (Lee Valley) in the C1 event. A couple of early touches put the medals out of reach and they finished in seventh place.
She added: “It just took us a while to find our groove today, but we’ve raced well together in the past and I’m sure we can all take some learnings and confidence into our individual events too.”
The British men’s kayak team was also a new line up for the 2025 season. Reigning World Champion Joe Clarke (Stafford & Stone) led the team off with Ben Haylett (Holme Pierrepont) and Jonny Dickson (CR Cats).
The team put in a strong, clean run to initially sit in second place, before finishing in fifth overall.
Tomorrow sees the start of the heats, kicking off at 8:30 UK time.
You can view all the live results and the upcoming schedule here
All the weekend action can be also followed on the Canoe Europe YouTube channel here