Great Britain’s sprint canoeists rounded off the first World Cup of the season in impressive fashion, with four more medals added to their collections in Montemor-O-Velho, Portugal.
That included gold for Bethany Gill and Chloe Bracewell in the C2 200m, leading out a British one-two in which Nia Tomos and Sian Mills took second.
There were also two bronze medals to take home as marathon specialist Zyggy Chmiel took his place on the podium in the final event of the day, the K1 5000, while Lizzie Broughton collected her second medal of the weekend in the women’s equivalent race.
That rounded off what was an impressive meet for the British team, who brought a youthful squad to the event and picked up valuable experience ahead of August’s ICF Canoe Sprint World Championships in Racice.
The final day was to belong to Gill and Bracewell however, as they dominated from start to finish to cross the line first head of Tomos and Mills.
They were also to finish third in the C2 500m, just an hour after their earlier success, though they strayed outside of their line to be disqualified in just their second World Cup event.
“I am really pleased with our performance, it is always great to get a win and amazing to get the experience of standing on the podium,” said Bracewell.
“We got out well from the start and settled into the race and once we got over the line and saw that the other girls got second, it was even better.
“I will take a lot of learnings away from this weekend, especially after the 500m event and focus on executing our race plans the best we can, knowing we can compete with the rest of the countries.”
It seemed like a number of near misses would then characterise the British day, with a C1 200m fourth for Kate Reid, while the men’s and women’s K4 500m crews both came in fifth place.
Jon Boyton then followed up his K1 1000m fifth place with a fourth in the K1 500m event – his best ever World Cup results.
But there was still time for more medals, as Broughton followed up her K1 1000m silver on the previous day by getting on the podium for a second time – once again proving herself in the unfamiliarity of the sprint in the K1 5000m.
“I didn’t really know what to expect not having competed at a sprint international event before, so they were two good races,” she said.
“It has been a really enjoyable weekend and great to see how sprint operates. I knew the longer the race went on today, people would drop back and I would be able to move closer to the front, but I didn’t quite have enough to challenge for first or second.”
And a World Cup debut was to end with a reward for Chmiel too, crossing the line third after a weekend to remember on the Portugese waters.
He said: “This was my first international as I usually do marathon rather than sprint, so I was really pleased with my K1 1000m performance which was a massive PB.
“I had a really good start and I led round the first turn and then hung on for as long as I could. I didn’t think I would do that well, so I am pretty happy with bronze.”
Sportsbeat 2017