Shropshire Paddlesport Blog

Can you believe it - we’re already two races into the season. A small but perfectly formed Shropshire Paddlesport team went off to Fladbury and had a completely storming day.

Dave & Kate took a comfortable win in Div 9 K2 and finally bowed to the inevitable and have been promoted to Div 8. Ellie’s K2 partner - Sarah Walters from Burton - was promoted to Div 6 at the Hasler Finals and so they were now both racing the 8 mile course. Unconfirmed rumour has it that Ellie was even seen to run a portage !

I’ve updated the results page to reflect Soar Valley and Fladbury - at this stage the leader board is completely up for grabs, but as a club we’ve got a lot to do if we’re going to make to the cut before the Hasler Finals in 2010 (and yes, before anyone else points it out I know I’ve not been in a boat for months !)

Well it was a beautiful sunny day in Reading with a lot of good racing on, as usual, a fairly lumpy bit of river. Mixed fortunes for the SHP collective but Anita and Gari upheld the honour of the club taking silver in their K2 race. A cracking Lightning run for Tim Bevan as well in his last L1 race seeing off a number of the usual competition.

Full results when they’re confirmed, but in the meantime a few pictures from the weekend

Gari & Anita collecting their silver

Matt powering off the start line

Dave & Kate in the bedlam of the Div 9 K2 start - it’s quieter up in Div 8, honest !

Tim looking determined…

Sam and cam looking knackered

Well, it doesn’t seem to have been the best race for SHP but sometimes things just don’t go your way.  With Ellie and the mopheads having to retire through illness, Matt running into trouble part way round and Cam & Marcus being bounced into the bank the youngsters didn’t have the best day out.

On the other hand Kate and Dave came 4th in a combined div 8/9 race beating a number of div 8 crews and the sun shone. That promotion has to be iminent.

Overall the club got 2 points.

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

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!

Just to let you know Deb gave birth to Catherine Elizabeth just before 12 today. Both of them are doing fine but staying in hospital for a little while and I expect them to be home sometime over the weekend.

Andy

The clubs going to the Hasler final are:

1st Nottingham 90 points

2nd Worcester 89 points

3rd Gailey 64 points

4th Anker Valley 63 points

5th Solihull 62 points

6th Shropshire Paddlesport 60 points

7th Lincoln 55 points

8th Burton 53 points

There are currently 14 people who hav qualified for the hasler finals.  These are the top 14 people in the points table and are listed below for clarification:

• Andy May - K1
• Ellie Barnes - K1 or K2
• Mathew Whittle - K1 or K2
• Dave Barnes - K2
• Will Bevan - K2
• Kate Jinks - K2
• Cameron Lambert - K2
• Connor Lambert - K2
• Deb May - K2
• Sam Rudd - K2
• Alice Russell - K2
• Phil Russell - K2
• Joseph Whittle - K2
• Marcus Whittle - K2

Plus as many lightnings as want to go.

I know Gari & Anita are planning on heading down to the nationals to get one final race in to qualify aswell which means there could potentially be 16 of us going to Reading.

Go Shropshire!!!!

Shropshire had a phenomenally successful days racing at ironbridge today with lots of people racing and lots of people winning.

In K1 racing Matt Whittle won his first ever div 7 K1 race taking the lead right from the start and maintaining it throughout the race.  Paul Crisp came second in the div 6 race (his second hasler race, and first div 6 race), overtaking at least one div 5 K2 on the way through and Sam Rudd came a commendable 5th in div 8 - again, only her second K1 race!

The K2s were equally successful with Connor and Joseph just pipping Anker Valley’s Liz Franklin and Jenny Sykes to first place by 4 seconds, closely followed by Marcus & Cameron who beat another K2 team into third place by just one second.  The finishs for these boats was so exciting I forgot to get any photos.  Sorry.

The div 9 race was consolidated with div 8  so Kate and Dave, despite their protestations that they like being in div 9 and shouldn’t be promoted because they’re not fast enough for div 8 managed to beat several div 8 crews to come second in the combined race which makes their chances of promotion reather more likely.

Also in the running for promotion are Anita and Gari who decided to enter the 8 mile div 6 race rather than do their normal div 7 course and again managed a second place.

Almost everyone came home with a pot and shed loads of club points.  Well done team.

Mick is sorting out the HRM so promotions etc should be known in the next week or so.  Hopefully (or maybe not) we’ll know before the nationals - Kate & Dave and Gari & Anita might be racing their first races in new divisions…

[Edit by Andy - a few photos from today]