The British canoeing team won medals in the men’s 200m events at the World Cup 1 sprint canoe event in Poznan, Poland on Sunday with a gold for Ed McKeever in K1 and silver for Liam Heath and Jon Schofield in K2.
The results came at the end of what the British team management acknowledged had been ”a challenging week of racing” in Poznan.
The winning of medals by McKeever and Health/Schofield will doubtless be a relief for the team managers.
On the face of it, it doesn’t seem as though there was much else to celebrate – no British boats earned Olympic places out of the European Qualification Regatta, one GB boat was even disqualified during the weekend for an underweight kayak (isn’t there a boatman on the team responsible for weighing all the paddlers’ boats before racing starts?) and neither of the country’s two top men particularly shone in the 1,000m event – Tim Brabants only made the ‘B’ final and Paul Wycherley was a fairly uninspiring 9th in the ‘A’ event.
The Brabants/Wycherley fight for the K1 1,000m slot – earned by virtue of Britain being the host nation – goes to the wire in Duisburg next week. Whichever man produces the best performance there will be racing in London.
In the 200m events, Ed McKeever had a super-quick start and was never seriously threatened for first place. Heath and Schofield had a slightly disappointing start but managed to graft back into contention and second place was a good result under the circumstances and certainly underlines the continuation of the form they’ve shown over the past year.
Royal Canoe Club’s Jessica Walker and rival Rachel Cawthorn were 6th and 7th , respectively, in the Women’s ’B’ 500m final.
John Anderson, GB Performance Director said: “It is great to see that our most consistent athletes on the programme are still delivering at the highest level in what is only the first big race of the season.”
More results can be found on the Poznan event organiser’s website.
