Sunday saw the latest London & South East Hasler qualifier at Royal Canoe Club. Being just up river Richmond put out a large team and succeeded in winning both the overall event and the lightning event. Once again there were excellent performances across all classes from lightning to division 1, and again a particularly sizeable junior contingent took part.
Division 6 start (photo from Royal website)
Many of our juniors are now regular marathon racers and are making rapid progress through the divisions.
In the lightning classes there were victories for Freya, Frances & Zoe, with Joshua and Jude taking 2nd and 3rd. Our juniors dominated the division 9 start line with 9 paddlers- Ollie took 3rd place and a promotion. It was a similar story in division 8, with 6 paddlers racing. Stefan took 2nd place, and Kevin 4th, both promoted. In division 7 Lily took 1st place ahead of Jeff, both narrowly missing promotion.
One of the highlights of the day was the Richmond 1-2-3-4-5 in division 6, with Ben, John, Matthew, Clive and Harry ensuring Richmond were very well represented in this race. Ben and John continued their rapid rise through the rankings with promotion to division 5. At the top end of racing, Freddie decided he would finally make an appearance at a race and put his recent streak of training to use with a 2nd place in division 2, faster than most of division 1. In division 1 it was again Tom who led the way again, paddling away from most of the field from the start to collect another victory. James followed in 3rd.
In the doubles classes Ian and Valentin took 2nd place in division 5. Junior canoes Ben & Adrian took an especially impressive 2nd place in division 6 and both got promoted to division 5.
Overall a very successful day for Richmond, with more paddlers getting their Hasler qualifying races in. There’s a bit of a break from regional races now, with Tonbridge the next on 14th July.
