With the first finals of the championships completed and a silver medal for Great Britain’s Olympic Champion Tim Brabants in the MK1 1000m, the events changed to see the qualifying of the fast and furious 200m racing; a new Olympic discipline for 2012. The British boats all successfully went through to the semi finals. The European Champion Ed McKeever exploded out of the start and took complete control of the race from start to finish taking 1st place; seeing him safely through to tomorrow’s MK1 200m final. Fellow team mates and European Champions Jon Schofield and Liam Heath demonstrated their raw power, dominating their race also taking the win, flying into Sundays MK2 200m final .
McKeever comments:
“I was quite pleased with how the racing today went; it was quite difficult condition as it got bumpy at the end of the course which is where we race. Hopefully the conditions tomorrow will be better and I get a middle lane.”
After only two years in a canoe, Richard Jeffries showed his potential finishing 6th in his first World Championship semi-final.
Olympian Jess Walker pushed hard in a tight semi final crossing the line neck and neck with the Chinese athlete Zhou Yu. With a photo finish required to determine who was 3rd and through to Sundays final Walker waited, unfortunately it wasn’t to be her day finishing 4th and missing out on the final by 0.2 second.
In the evening sun and with the wind dropped the endurance athletes took to the start line to race in the 5K finals. European Champion Lani Belcher (21 years old) lined up with high hopes of gaining a medal. Early on Belcher, Viven and Palataran pulled away from the group. Going into the final turn the group had created a substantial gap, with a medal almost in her hands disaster struck for Belcher when her rudder broke making it impossible to stay in a straight line. Watching her opponents pass she made her way to the finish line crossing in 7th place.
After winning his silver medal in the MK1 1000m earlier in the day, Brabants took to the start line for the 5k. With an early break Brabants found himself in the second group, the leading pack lead by Ken Wallace continued to pull away leaving Brabants a lot to do to find a medal position. Wallace took the front group home claiming the gold, Brabants finished in 5th.
More information, startlists and results can be found at the official event website -
http://www.kayak2010.com