The National Sprint Championships were held last weekend at Nottingham, with Richmond paddlers achieving considerable success and picking up many national titles. Conditions were challenging with a traditionally strong Nottingham headwind leading to slow times and bumpy conditions.
Richmond had 21 paddlers competing across a range of categories with the junior team out in force. Leading the charge was Marko who took victory in the senior A/B canoe 500m, making him Richmond’s first senior C1 national champion since 1983. This was a fantastic performance given he was competing against some of the best of Britain’s senior C1 paddlers. He rounded off the weekend with a 3rd in the senior C1 1000m, and 1st in the junior 200m. Our other C1 paddlers Ben and Adrian competed in a small U16 Canoe field and ended the weekend unbeaten.
On the kayak side, Ellie and Lily were racing in their first age group championships after graduating from the lightning class last year and did brilliantly to take 1st place in the U14 K4 500m event and become national age group champions. They gained a second medal in the K4 1000m, alongside Renee, a very promising regatta from all three. Competing in the U16 age group, Ali raced very well in crew boats and picked up three silver medals in the K2 200m, 500m & 1000m. Sophie raced in U18 girls and her best performance was in K2 500m where she formed a last minute pairing with an U14 Lincoln paddler and finished very strongly in 6th, not far behind some junior national team pairings.
Richmond’s junior boys were not to be outdone. Oliver had a very successful regatta and was our most prolific medal winner. He has trained very hard over winter and this showed as he picked up no less than 6 medals in the U14 age group, including one gold in K2. His brother Alex got some good results in the U16 category, and completing the junior line up was Nick R who competed in a very highly contested U18 category. He had some good results, especially over 500m and 1000m, and took bronze in the K2 1000m.
Richmond seniors were a little thin on the ground, but produced some good performances with Neil B winning mens D 1000m and Shane winning his favoured 200m event in Masters A. He was closely followed in 2nd by Gabor. Our final medal winners were Andrei who celebrated his birthday with a 3rd in Masters B 1000m, and Randall and Sean who were 3rd in Masters C K2 200m. Richmond’s other racers were Archie, Geoff R, Balasz and Tony W.
Next regatta is 11th– 12th May; all entries should go to Ollie.
