shropshirepaddlesport.org - the blog

Shropshire Paddlesport has a group on facebook! http://www.facebook.com/#!/groups/4733648691/ feel free to join!

The 2nd Set of pool sessions @ oswestry pool is due to start next week (11th Feb - for 5 weeks), There are still a couple of places left. Please email gfrankling@gmail.com or contact Dave M if you are interested.

The morning session @ the club has been canceled due to no water being available (It's all ice).

Well done to the 2011 Slalom Interclubs team on another successful performance on the artificial slalom site at Cardington in Bedfordshire. On a somewhat changeable weekend weather wise everyone put in a great effort to give Shropshire's highest placing in this competition yet.

The team consisted of: Marcus Whittle, Conner Lambert, Phil Bevan, Florance Whittle, Caroline Bevan, Anita Evans, Tom Rosser, Will Bevan, Joseph Whittle, Matthew Whittle, Tim Bevan and Cameron Lambert.

This year Shropshire Paddlesport finished 16th out of 22 teams who had entered from accross the country. We also managed to pick up the Tom Wells Shield for the best team whithout a full team. We were most delighted by this and it will soon be on display at the club.

Joe and Matthew Whittle had another go at the gate judge exam this year and both passed so congratulations to them both.

Thankyou to our valuable supporters: Joe, Lucy, Jonathan and Poppy.

A few photos from the weekend, courtesy of Marcus's camera, I think Florance and Marcus taking most of the photos as I remember...........

Unlike the previous few outings that the club has had the sun was out and not a cloud in the sky. Dave and Kate booked a lovely day for this trip and a good turn out was inevitable! After dodging a few canal boats on the fist section the trip ran like clockwork with lunch just after 1pm and at the get out point by 3.30 ish.

To finish the trip on a high a paddle across the Pontcysllte Aqueduct with some stunning views – I never did find out how long it took the water to hit the ground – and some well deserved scones and cream.

Some pictures have been uploaded on the Gallery. Thanks to Dave & Kate for organising and to Joe for transportation!

Lots of competition events going on today. Dave Reevey represented the club at Stone slalom today and a small team of flatties went off to Gailey haser; the bumpiest race in the region.

Ellie and Simone Orme (Burton) had a cracking start among the div 7 k2s and led the field from the first bend, winning by several boat lengths. Kate and Dave stayed clear of the washes in the same race coming 5 out of 8 boats entered.

Deb and Sam rather unexpectly entered div 6 (not really ideal after a winter of training with the lightnings with a max distance of 2km). With only 2 boats in the race the start was consolidated with div 5 k2s which made it really rather choppy and they only just managed not to swim. They chose the sane course of action and dropped back a little coming second in div 6. This got us a nice shiny shield and more points than we would have won in div 7 so a win all round really (although next time Jane will be in change of Sam's alarm clock).

Lauren and Ben did their second lightning races, Lauren winning U12 girls and Ben coming third in U10 boys being beaten by Ben Quitenden and Ben Aston. Clearly to be a cool U10 boy these days you need to be called Ben!

Back on a sunny October Sunday Shropshire Paddlesport hosted its first ever white water national ranking division 3 & 4 slalom race at Mile End Mill, Llangollen. The day was really fun with 59 competitors entered from across the country, as far a field as Lincoln, Sussex and Scotland. The event went smoothly and more or less ran to time thanks to the hard work of many helpers from the club.

There were many sucesses in the paddling to mention. In the division 4 events, Tim Bevan won 1st Junior in the K1 and Will Bevan, showing his prowess with one blade, promoted to division 3 in C1. Will also teamed up with Joseph Whittle in the Division 3 C2 to win their event by over 25 seconds, only incurring one penalty on their 2nd run.

Division 3 C1 was a close run thing with Tom Rosser paddling consistently well to a win.

Shropshire Paddlesport took the first 4 places in the division 3 men with only 3 seconds seperating them all! - Joseph Whittle in 1st, one second behind was Conner Lambert in 2nd and Cameron Lambert in 3rd. In 4th and 1st Junior was Marcus Whittle in one of his rare apperances in a kayak.

 Matthew Whittle stormed home in a time of 123 seconds in the judges event, only one second behind a premier paddler who had the fastest time on the course overall.

Thank you to everyone who raced, supported and helped before, during and after the event.

A small crew of racing paddlers went to Trentham hasler at the weekend.  It's out of region, but Stoke is much closer than most of the midlands region and it's a chance to paddle on their fabulous lake.

After the heavy rain last week it was dry, clear and more than a little bit parky; the kind of day where you chip the ice out of your boat before putting it on the car.  Fortunately the mist lifted before the racing started so the paddlers could see where they were going and the support crews could watch the the race.

There were some good results; Cam teamed up with Ross Orme from Burton and they came third, Ellie won div 7 stealing the race from two Trentham guys at the penultimate turn, Matt Kate, Dave and Deb came mid field ish in div 5k1, div 7 k2 and div 7 k1 respectively.

For the first time in moths we were able to put some lightnings on the water; Ben & Lauren Homewood races in U10 boys and U12 girls respectively.  In the interests of non-sibling rivalry they both came second - a tremendous result for two youngsters who have only been paddling since the summer and who had never raced before.

All in all, a cracking day!

That was the last hasler of the year, but for folk who like longer distances there is the Ross Warland (20 mile relay) race later this month, the Frank Luzmore in the new year, followed by the Watersides. Thamesides and Royal.  And the DW.

Other than that, next race is Gailey hasler on March 27th.

National Slalom Interclub Finals, Bedford, September 11 & 12

This year Shropshire Paddlesport rose to 17th / 21 clubs at the fiercely competitive Interclub finals - one place better than last years result  - a great team effort from all - congratulations!

Thanks to Caroline Bevan for some analysis of this years and previous years results which showed overall we were much cleaner with far fewer penalties incurred as a team overall. However we still have to go alot faster to take on the top clubs so some work to do!

A few highlights of the weekend: Tim Bevan on his unicycle.

 Matthew Whittle 1st and Florance Whittle 3rd in the Division 3 competition.

Caroline Bevan getting all the gates on her second run.

Marcus whittle managing to keep his focus  and not lose his temper even a little bit after a girl fell for him in the middle of the course! 

 Tom Rosser finishing a respectable 14th/21 in the tricky C1 Men class and Joseph Whittle & Will Bevan in C2 only picking up 2 penalties finishing well in the top half in 8th/21.

Conner Lambert competing in the Premier mens class and his score being pretty evenly matched with his brother Cameron, finishing in a time of 116.

The team of Whittle / Reevey / Lambert in the teams finishing 16th and the team of Whittle / Tomkins / Lambert finishing 17th in the Premier / Div 1 event with an amazing 2nd run with only one penalty between them.

Joe Whittle and Phil Bevan did a great job organising everyone to get to their judging duties on time. Thanks to Joe for taking loads of boats and kit on the trailer & Neil Rosser for taking some great photos of the weekend.

The slalom team would like to have their own colours in stead of the original green and white, we will of course be keeping the same logo. All the slalom paddlers and many marathon and sprint paddlers like the idea of new colours. Im not saying its going to happen but it is definately something to consider. There have been many ideas of designs for boats, paddles, bibs, and thermals if you have and comments or ideas your self just say, after all this is only an idea for the slalom side of the club so far. thankyou