shropshirepaddlesport.org - the blog

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).

Its been an interesting year for the flat water squad this year.  A lot of the div 6 crews decided to take the year off (and anytime you want to come back you'd be more than welcome!) and Andy and I (and Catherine) had a fairly slow start to the year.

The first races of the season saw a small squad of 4-5 heading out to races but by the spring numbers had increased enough for the club to come 6th in the region and secure our place at the hasler finals.

Promotions in the 2009-10 season were as follows:

Matt Whittle Anker Valley 7 to 6

Cam Lambert Anker Valley 9 to 8

Cam Lambert Worcester 8 to 7

Deb May Worcester 8 to 7

Will Bevan Shropshire 9 to 8

Florence Whittle Shropshire 9 to 8

Matt Whittle Ironbridge 6 to 5

Dave Barnes Nationals 8 to 7

Dave also got a Gold medal at the nationals championships in div 8 as well as a silver with Kate in the Div 8 K2 race.  Deb & Sam won bronze in the over 34 veteran women's race at the nationals.

All in all, it has been a pretty good year!

The team going to the hasler finals in Worcester on Oct 10th is as follows:

Div 5 K1 Matt Whittle

Div 7 K1 Deb May

Div 8 k1 Andy May

Sam Rudd

Florence Whittle

Div 9 k1 Jonathan Evans

Div 9 C1 Joe Whittle

Div 6 K2 Anita Bennett & Cam Lambert

Div 7 k2 Dave Barnes & Kate Jinks

Div 9 k2 Tim Bevan & Nick Stokes

The lightning squad has yet to be confirmed.

Ironbridge is the last race of the Hasler year and its always a good one.  There are two separate courses; for div 1-6 the race starts at Ironbridge, goes through Jackfield rapids and finishes at Bridgnorth.  For the lower divisions and lightnings the race is a circuit around Bridgnorth.

This year Shropshire entered 14 paddlers; most of us racing the Bridgnorth circuit and Matt and Ellie both decided to tackle the longer course through the rapids in K1 and Anita and Cam raced div 6 k2.

The weather was good but the water was low posing challenges for both races.  In div 7 Deb managed to improve her normal second from bottom position when the two boats behind her grounded out on the rocks and in her new light boat managed to float free and maintain the advantage.  Jonathan had an altercation both with the rocks and a local fisheman who tried to cast at him and survived to tell the tale albeit a bit wetter than he intended.  Nick Stokes put in a great performance in his first ever k1 race  as did Tom Rosser who isn't known for paddling long point boats, but teamed up with Connor to come 3rd in div 7.  Kate and Dave comfortably won div 8 k2  and Florence won div 9.

The high division crews all competently negotiated the rapids (there is video on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASl-YyqI7ks&feature=channel - do make sure you have your sound turned on for thi; the commentary from Louise and Chris is priceless) and put in good results.  Anita & Cam narrowly missed out on a medal, coming 4th, Ellie, racing above her normal division came 6th and Matt, in his  second race in div 6 came second and got promoted to div 5.    Well done Matt.  Full club results re below:

Div 6 k1:   Mat 2nd

Ellie 6th

Div 7k1     Deb 7th

Div 8 K1    Andy 7th

Div 9 k1    Florence 1st

Jonathan 11th

Nick 15th

Joe 16th

Div 6 k2    Anita & Cameron 4th

Div 7 k2    Connor & Tom 3rd

Div 8 k2    Dave & Kate 1st

Dave Barnes is the national div 8 marathon champion after just pipping Emma Hooton from Anker Valley to the finish line.  Well done Dave.  Other results to follow.

The national marathon championships are taking place at Chester this weekend and a host of SHP paddlers are talking part.   Kate Jinks & Dave Barnes in the Div 8 k2 race.  They've never not placed at the nationals but this is their first national championship in div 8 and they came third which is a great achievement.

Matt Whittle was also racing in U16MK1, Florence Whittle in U14 FK1 and Cam Lambert in U14MK1 and Joe Whittle in Over 49 Veteran Men C1. I don't have their results yet.

Sunday morning sees Jonathan Evans racing in div 9 k1, Dave Barnes in div 8 k1 and Deb May in div 7 k1.  These races will start from 09:30 if anyone fancies coming up to watch.

Lots of club members are racing in the afternoon - and we have some new pairings: Ellie is teaming up with jenny Barber from Solihull in U16LK2,  Anita with Geoff Barber (Jenny's dad - also from Solihull) in the open K2 race and Matt Whittle is racing with Solihull's Tom Lusty in U16MK2.    Closer to home we also have Nick Stokes and Tim Bevan racing U14K2, the long standing Barnes-Jinks team racing in O44MK2 and Deb & Sam Rudd have teamed up for O34LK2.  The K2 races all kick off at 3pm.

It should be another good day tomorrow.

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:

A new and improved super-size race team went off to Burton on Trent for the day yesterday with the club managing to field 11 paddlers - that's the first time we've been in double figures for a long time. As usual Burton managed to find some good weather (perfectly timed as the heavens opened just as we left to drive home) and Team Shropshire generally had an excellent day.

In doubles Cam raced up in Division 6 with Anita with both of them looking very smooth and crossing the line in 3rd place. In Div 7 Ellie and Deb notched up a comfortable win - so comfortable that they were seen negotiating with Mick Nadal to ensure that they didn't get promoted just yet.

In Div 8 Dave and Kate yet again found themselves racing to the line against Solihull, but this time got edged out into 4th place.

In singles Jonathan went for his first race in Div 9 (whilst being heard muttering something about "this is only my 4th time in a boat...". I think we still have some work to do to find an appropiate size and shaped boat for him as some back problems meant that he didn't exactly have a comfortable race. He didn't come last however, and at least we were able to put him in touch with a good physio afterwards.

At the other end of the Div 9 pack  we saw the very welcome return of Florence Whittle to the race team, putting in a storming race in her first time out of Lightnings. She came a very credible 3rd with both the two people above her being promoted straight to Div 8.

In  a huge Div 8 field Sam managed to avoid any entanglements with careless East Anglians to come 6th, while Andy found himself racing flat out in the final stretch (with a couple of juniors!!) but old age and treachery overcame youth and talent to enable him to sneak a 9th.

Last. but certainly not least, Matt braved that sudden double-distance feeling that comes with being promoted to Div 6 and still managed to come 4th. he looked, shall we say, a little weary as he came off but that's all just a matter of practice.

All in all a great day, terrific to see so many people on the water and some very useful club points which consolidated our position in the clubs championship. It's now looking pretty much certain that we'll make the cut for an invitation to the Hasler finals. That, however, is a long way away - the next thing is our own race next weekend. See you all there in some capacity or other.

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

Well the race team have been out and about a lot since my last post - where did the time go?

First of all there was Worcester with grey overcast skies and a cold wind . We had Ellie racing in Div 7 K1, Sam and Andy in Div 8 K1, and Kate & Dave  and Deb & Cameron in Div 8 K2. Deb and Cam got promoted to Div 7 - so that's two promotions in two races for Cam !

Then we went off to the sunshine of Leamington Spa. For those of you who've not been to the Leamington race it's a short course between two weirs and so the lower divisions do three loops - that's six turns ! This race also saw the very welcome return of Cat Jones to the race team racing Div 7 K2 with Deb and producing a very credible 4th place. We also had Ellie with a comfortable second in Div 7 K1 while Andy struggled along at the back of Div 8 somewhere and eventually got in after they had all packed up and gone home

Last weekend was the blazing sunshine of Nottingham and the usual suspects assembled on the banks of the Trent for a glorious (but very hot) day out. Dave and Kate revealed their new world class training programme and still got into a neck and neck race to the line for second place with Jenny & Jo from Solihull but were just pipped at the post. Ellie was racing C2 with Nottingham's Kath Nadal and they came second despite Ellie admitting that she'd never canoed 4 miles before. Deb had the joyous experience of her first Div 7 K1 race, accompanied for most of the distance by old friend and nemesis Archie Miles from Lincoln. Afterwards she was heard vainly pleading with Mick Nadal to be allowed to go back to Div 8, a sentiment supported only by Ethan Troy whom she managed to capsize on the home straight.  Sam had an "incident" with another paddler who managed to turn her boat around and force her onto the side.  She recovered and continued of course, but ended up much further down the list than she's used to. Andy, as usual, pottered along somewhere in the middle of Div 8 although apparently there is video of the finish which has Louise Clive  saying to Catherine "Look - here comes Daddy ... oh he looks about done in).

By the way I should mention that Louise and Chris Pretswood are being complete stars by looking after Catherine for us which enables both Deb and I to race.

So - as it stands at the moment we are on track for a trip to the Hasler finals. We have the last qualifying place, just above the cut and so if we can maintain that over the next couple of races then we'll be eligible to go to Worcester on October 10th.

Not only did Matt make it to div 6, but Cam also got promoted to div 8.  Well done guys!