shropshirepaddlesport.org - the blog

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.

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

September 4 & 5th saw James Tomkins and David Reevey competing at Marple. This event organised by Manchester Canoe Club typically is a long and testing course where it is advisable to save a bit of energy and concentration for the tricky bottom sections.

James has a fantastic weekend with a win on Saturday in a time of 124 with no penalties and a 3rd place on Sunday. These results secured his promotion to Division 2. Congratulations!

David has been paddling consistenly well this year and on Saturday finished 8th out of 18, scoring a total of 611 point out of 1000.

There are two more local races to have a try at if you are new to slalom - these are Stone on October 10th and Mile End Mill, Llangollen October 17th (Club race).

It was great to see a National Ranking Short Course slalom race being held at the club. Competitors were mainly from our club but also we had guests from Chester, Llangollen & Bryn Offa. Many thanks to all who helped in course construction and running of the event. Results and photo of Cameron Lambert and Matthew Whittle in the C2 here:

Congrarulations to Cameron on his win at Rhug Division 3/4 slalom at the weekend. A clean run in a time of 143 seconds secured promotion to division 3.

Dave Reevey, pictured right raced well both days.  With a much improved smoothness to his paddling style, finished 8th on Saturday & 6th on Sunday.

Daves efforts were however surpassed by Les, pictured left, who was 5th on Saturday and stormed into 2nd on Sunday, narrowly missing out on 1st place.

The event was enjoyed by all, aided by the beautiful surroundings and weather.

Next 3/4 slalom is Stone on June 5th & 6th, with team runs on the saturday

Officially British Summer Time begins ths Sunday

With lighter evenings comes the return of Wednesday Salom training, starting 31st March.

Training starts at 6 if you have your own boat & paddle please bring them along as I'm not sure how many slalom boats are available to use.

Bring a watch with a stopwatch on too if you have one.

See you on the canal, Anita

National Interclub finals Sept 12/13

Shropshire Paddlesport improved their result as a club for the 3rd year, this year finishing 18th out of 21 clubs. Bring on next year!

A few results to mention... David Reevey & Phil Bevan jumped up a number of divisions to compete in the Premier mens event! David finishing 18th/21 & Phil 20th - negotiating the course carefully on his 2nd run, not missing a gate!

Matthew & Florence Whittle both picked up a nice stone ashtray type prize for finishing top under 14 in division 3.

Will Bevan competed in the division 2/3 C1 & managed to get every gate on his 2nd run, impressive for his first time on moving water in a wobbly boat with one blade!

Marcus Whittle jumped a couple of divisons competing in Premier/1 C1 speeding to 15th/21

Cameron Lambert teamed up with Joseph Whittle in the C2, again their first time on moving water, finished 18th.

The mens team of Matthew Whittle, James Tomkins & Gari Sumner pulled off an impressive 2nd run, only picking up one penalty between them all to finish 10th/21.

Other non paddling events included limbo under a paddle (think Flo won this?), Human long jump (Marcus the winner?), Boules & Spinning around with your head on a chair then trying to run back in a straight line.

Stone 3/4 October 11th

Shropshire had a great turnout for this event - a national ranking event attended by over 150 paddlers, at Stafford & Stone Canoe Club - winners of this years Interclub championships.

As previously said - some impressive results were had:

Flo winning the Division 4 ladies & she would have also won the division 3 too! Marcus too in the same position winning division 4 by miles & would have been top in division 3. Joseph Whittle making a return to kayak for this event after his summer C2 spell, winning the division 4 men. All 3 Whittles being promoted to division 3. Will Bevan not to be outdone finished 10th/48 also gaining promotion to division 3. Phil Bevan finished 36th, unfortunately not only being beaten by one son but also his youngest Tim who finished a few places higher in 19th. Caroline narrowly missed a gate on her 2nd run finshing up in 13th.

Will also teamed up with Joseph in the divison 3/4 C2 getting it together well for their 2nd run for 3rd place. Gari & Anita narrowly missed out on a prize finishin 4th in the 2/3 C2.

Its now the end of the season for Slalom but watch this space as there'll be the Stone winter series races comming up.

SHP seems to have had an amazingly successful day yesterday .

At Lincoln, Ellie came second in div 7 and Dave came second in div 8 - his first ever K1 race, and his first div 8 race.  Fortunately he wasn't promoted otherwise Kate might have ensured that it was his last race ever.  It looks like Dave is going for the club Hasler trophy again - somebody please stop him!!!

(Results page now updated to reflect Lincoln results)

Re friends in other clubs, Sarah Walters (Burton) came 5th in her first div 6 K1 race and was the fastest woman at the event and Tom Lusty (Solihull) came second in his frst div 6 k1 race and got promoted to div 5.  We remember the days when it was Tom's ambition to beat Kate and Dave with his parter Jenny Barber.  Go Tom!!

At Stone Slalom the club was very successful although I only have partial results.  Hopefully somebody who was there - and actually understands this spinny boat stuff - will write this up more fully.  Hoewever, I do know that Joseph Whittle came 1st in the men's K1 event and third with Will bevan in C2 juniors;  Matt Whittle came 2rd overall by 0.3 of a second, Marcus Whittle came first by 30 seconds in his race and Florence Whittle got first out of all the the div 4 women.

Well done all!

Congratulations to Matthew Whittle winning Saturday's & Sunday's division 3 Men's K1 event & Gari Sumner for gaining 5th position on the Saturday which gave him enough points to be promoted to division 2!

Full results of this event are available from www.canoeslalom.co.uk

Further dates for your diary:  Bala Mill Div 2/3 (double) Sept 26 & 27 (1 event Sat, 1 event Sun)

                                              Stone  Div 3/4 Oct 11th

That then more or less is the end of the slalom season

A few of the boys from the club headed down to Rhug (North Wales on the way to Bala) for the division 3 & 4 slalom.

This year Rhug is a new slalom site on the calander., refreshments apparently tasty but expensive at the nearby organic farm shop.

Results were as follows:

June 20th

Division 3 K1 Men:

Gari Sumner  2nd/16 -   in atime of 117 (1 second behind the winner)

Les Davies    4th

David Reevey  6th

Division 4 K1 Men - James Tompkis 3rd/14 & promoted in his first slalom!!

June 21st

Division 3 K1 Men:

Gari Sumner  2nd / 16

Les Davies    5th / 16

James Tompkis 10th / 16

David Reevey   11th / 16

Overall some impressive results from Shropshire. Next local division 3/4 race is at Bala Mill on Sunday July 12th.