Luc Royle posted a lifetime best result on day five of the U23 and Junior World Slalom Championship in Liptovsky, Slovakia.
At his debut World Championships, Luc was agonisingly close to the podium in the U23 Men’s C1 final, achieving his highest ever placing at an international competition.
Luc put in a blistering performance in the semi-final to post a clean run in 96.60 to finish in fourth place, with compatriot and Stafford and Stone teammate, Kurts Adam Rozentals also through after finishing in third in 95.88.
In the final, Luc was up on the leading time at the first timecheck after a strong start, but he lost some time in the middle of the course to ultimately finish half a second off the podium in fourth place, in 96.21.
And while he was naturally disappointed with the fourth place, he took lots of positives from the day’s racing.
He said: “It was great to be in the final and if you’d told me before I got here that I would be fourth, I’d have taken that, but right now it still hurts to have been so close.
“I was really pleased with my semi-final run, that felt great. I attacked the start in the final but just lost time through errors at gates 13 and 14 – I took a slightly lower line than I did in the semi-finals.
“Overall though it’s positive that I put down two consistent runs back to back today, both of them clean.”
Kurts Adams ultimately finished in sixth place overall with a time of 96.56.
Holme Pierrepoint’s Ed McDonald finished in 16th place overall.
In the U23 C1 women’s events Ellis Miller (Lee Valley) was the top placed Brit finishing in 15th place after picking up a couple of touches early in her run.
Rachel Ellis was 21st, with her Lee Valley team mate Joanne Blythe-Shields in 27th.
In the Junior kayak events, Lee Valley’s Arina Kontchakov and Zoë Blythe-Shields achieved lifetime best performances when they qualified for their first World Championship K1 finals.
Arina put in two gutsy performances today, and fought back in the bottom end of the course in the semi-final to book her slot in the final.
In her second run of the day, an early touch on gate 6 proved costly and she finished in eighth place overall.
She said: “It was a tough day, the water here is so different than Lee Valley where I train and this afternoon it got really windy so I was a bit nervous in the start pool.
“But the venue is amazing and there’s a grandstand in the middle of the course where all the friends and family are cheering and supporting us and it really did spur me on in the bottom part of the course to keep going.
“I missed out on the kayak last year and it did impact my self confidence but the time away has allowed me to reset and this competition I’ve been able to showcase all of the skills I’ve been working on which has helped me.
“Watching all the other paddlers in training, the venue coming to life with the branding boards and grandstands really helped too. It’s been a real inspiration.”
Unfortunately for Zoë a paddle back at gate 7 meant the medals were out of reach for her but she finished in 10th place – also her best ever kayak result.
In the Junior men’s events, it was international debutante Gwion Williams (Llandysul) who was the top finishing Brit in the men’s C1 semi-finals.
He finished in 16th place, less than a second off the top ten.
Breadalbane’s Oscar Wyllie was 27th overall, improving on the 30th place in 2023 and Jonah Hanrahan picked up 50 which put an end to his finals hopes and he finished in 37th.
The full results for the day can be found here.