First of all I’ll get your attention and hopefully you’ll be inclined to read on. As of last weekend I’m the European Champion in the new Olympic discipline of K1 (kayak single) 200m.
I had been feeling really positive in the build up to the European Championships. Training had been going really well and I’d been feeling so strong and dynamic on the water. In time trials I had been recording personal bests and force testing in the kayak showed I was generating more force per stroke than ever before. We also had a press conference in Bisham Abbey where the team for the Europeans were introduced to media people and I chatted with journalists from the Telegraph and Sky Sports.
Our 200m squad flew out to Trasona, Northern Spain for the European Championships on the Thursday, very late considering the Championships started on the Friday, but we didn’t want to be hanging around whilst the 1000m paddlers were using the regatta course. On the Saturday morning there was the 1000m finals and we still had to sit and watch the other athletes, (luckily there was some British interest with Rachel Cawthorn winning the K1 1000m for women, Tim Brabants on his comeback trail and a men’s K4 all in the finals). Then the afternoon and my time to race. There was the opportunity to make it straight to the final for the winner of each heat. Unfortunately I had the German (Ronald Rauhe – the current World Champion) in my heat which meant we were both looking to make a statement of intent in the heats and get a win over the other one.
In the race I had a poor start but was able to pull through the field and win the heat, and more importantly I could put my feet up for the afternoon as the rest of the competitors had to go back out in their boats for a semi-final about an hour and a half later. I went back to the hotel that night and slept surprisingly well considering I had the European Championship final the next morning and I felt as if I had never had a better chance of a medal.
The final: The start is a key part of the 200m race, and
despite you not being able to win the race at the start you can certainly lose
it. I had a solid start and was only slightly down on the German, 20m into the
race but after an intense acceleration phase I got my nose in front, maintained
the momentum for the next 150m and held on over the last 30m to win the
European Championships. This was my first medal from a major championship and
you can’t get a better feeling than standing on top of the podium and listening
to your national anthem. This was followed up by my team mates and training
partners Liam Heath and Jonny Schofield winning the K2 (kayak pairs) 200m
event. After the presentations, we were
all in demand both for Eurosport interviews and from enthusiastic Spanish
spectators who wanted to have their photos taken with us.
All in all this was a fantastic weekend of racing for the
British kayak team, with four gold medals and one bronze medal, making sure
that Britain finished third overall in the medal table. Now we have a slight
break for a couple of days, coming home to Bradford for the weekend, visiting
my local canoe club where I first took up the sport a dozen or so years ago and
handing out prizes to aspiring youngsters.
Next we knuckle down to the hard graft in preparation for the World
Championships in
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