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.

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...........

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.

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.

A small group of 5 travelled to stone today to get in some early winter slalom practice. On leaving Shrewsbury it was grey skies and rain but it brightened up nicely in Stone.

Arriving at 10am we warmed up by running around a football pitch then moved onto the water to practice a full length course which was split into three sections.

After an eventful lunch at Morrison's when David Reevey was dissapointed with the amount of toast he recieved compared to Gari we headed back for the second session of the day.

In the afternoon we practiced doing staggers with using the option of doing them either forwards or with a spin or a back-off.

Everyone found the day useful and we were lucky enough to be able to use the club house at Stafford & Stone Canoe Club to get changed in.

The next moving water slalom training day will be at Stone on Sunday December the 6th meeting at Stone at 10am.

Good luck to everyone competing in the interclubs in befford at the weekend - especially those doing their first ever paddlesport competition!

The national marathon championships took place this weekend with a strong team from Shropshire Paddlesport entered.  Amongst the juniors, Ellie Barnes came 10th in ladies U14 competition against top paddlers from all over the country, Matt Whittle came 19th in a strong field in the U14 men's race which included a number of paddlers who regularly race for Britain and Cameron Lambert came 13th in the U12's race.

In the crew races Ellie teamed up with Alice Russell to come 10th in the U14s K2 race and Cam & Matt finished just 19 seconds quicker than the girls - again coming 10th.  Ellie also raced in the U16 ladies K2 race with sprint partner Sarah Walters from Burton coming 11th out of 13.

The adults who were racing also had a very successful trip to Longridge with Kate & Dave taking silver in the national div 9 race and Anita and Gari taking bronze in the div 7 race.  Sam Rudd was also racing in div 8 K1 but her result appears to have got lost so this will updated when I've spoken to her or the website is amended!

Overall it was a very successful weekend's racing for Shropshire Paddlesport - well done guys!

Below are Shropshire's results from their efforts on the challenging Div 3/4 Bala Mill course. Gari almost winning.

1 9 Adrian Ward DV          Halifax CC 115 4        119 110 2 112 112

2 50 Gari Sumner DV        Shopshire P S             111 2 113 114 114 113

3 308 Daniel Sykes J18     Leeds CC                   113 8 121 111 4 115 115

4 269 William Stewart J12  Staffs & Stone             113 4 117 118 4 122 117

5 86 Les Davies DV           Shopshire P S             122 4 126 143 2 145 126

6 128 James Tomkins J16  Shopshire P S              122 6 128 129 129 128

7 135 Martin Walker DV        Mold CC                     126 6 132 126 4 130 130

8 28 Sebastian Kennedy U12 Manchester              128 8 136 129 2 131 131

9 42 Brian Dunn DV              Halifax CC                138 138 140 140 138

10 369 Dave Reevey DV        Shopshire P S           134 10 144 128 58 186 144

11 102 Phil Bate DV            Staffs & Stone cap cap 140 8 148 148

12 218 William Pemberton J16 Trentham CC cap cap 124 54 178 178

13 54 Les Stewart DV           Burton CC                    171 58 229 184 4 188 188

Div 2/3 C2

Shropshire Paddlesport is offering people the chance to come and try paddling (canoeing, kayaking and bell boating) on the afternoon of 6 June.  Sessions will last 2 hours and will run from 2-4 and 4-6. 

We are also offering a 1* course starting on Monday 8 June from 6:30 to 8:30 lasting for 4 weeks.  This leads to a recognised British Canoe Union qualification  and will give you basic boat handling skills and is the recommended minimum standard for club trips and saturday morning sessions.

Further courses are available in July and August.

Places are limited for both the Come and Try It and the 1* course so booking is essential.  Please contact Deb on 07747 535341 or deb[at]shropshirepaddlesport.org

(Please note that due to IT work, e-mails may not be picked up after Friday night)