Katie Reid won the second canoe sprint World Cup medal of her career less than four years since first taking up the sport. The 23-year-old stood on the WC1 200m podium alongside Canadian champion Laurence Vincente-Lapointe, the clear winner, and Ksenjia Kurach of Russia, after finishing the race in 48.616 seconds. Reid’s first bronze came on her senior debut in 2016, and this one comes after setting a sub-48 second personal best last week as well as a ninth-place finish at the opening World Cup of the season in Szeged. “My plan was to get a really good start and then transition well and relax,” explained the Scot. “Training has been going really well, so it is about trusting that and just doing what you do on a daily basis. “I still have a lot to gain on the start but I am happy with the rest of the race, I am over the moon.
“We worked really hard over the winter, so to come here and get a medal this early in the season is great.
“It was such tight racing but I really enjoyed it, it was great fun!”
“It bodes well for the rest of the season for sure."
In other races, Jon Schofield was unlucky to miss out on the K1 200m A final – his time of 35.64s in the B final would have secured the bronze medal in the A.
While Lizzie Broughton, who finished fifth in the women’s K1 5000m, was unable to add to her earlier gold, finishing just ten seconds off the podium.
On Friday, Broughton showed her class as she stormed to victory in the women’s K1 1,000m race on the first day of the ICF Sprint World Cup.
The 30-year-old broke away from Sweden’s Karin Johansson and Australia’s Catherine McArthur at half way stage before crossing the line a second up on Johansson in Duisburg, Germany.
The Richmond canoeist placed fourth in Szeged, Hungary, in the same event but got it right in Germany, finishing in a time of 3:58.718.
“I was pleased with how last week went but I knew there were lots of things I could do a bit better so I really tried to work on them and it all seemed to come together,” said Broughton.
“The three of us were level at 250 but then I managed to get away and get a bit of a gap.”
Traditionally specialising in the marathon and 5,000m disciplines, Broughton has been putting in the hours on the shorter distance and was delighted to see the work pay off.
She said: “I have done a lot more 1,000m specific training this year and the training complements each other pretty well; the 5,000m, the marathon and 1,000m are pretty similar.
“Whereas last year I just turn up and raced, I feel a lot more prepared this year.
“I didn’t want to have to race the semi so I thought I would go as hard as I needed to go to get a top three places. I had a pretty good race in the heat and I felt I had a little bit left in the tank which is always good.
“I also think it’s more about getting race practice because I’ve hardly raced this distance internationally, so everything I do I learn a bit.”
Photo credit: Canoephotography.com
Sportsbeat 2018