Fladbury

Fladbury was the 2nd marathon of the new season - the weather was good, there was a reasonable turnout of Lightnings, juniors & veterans. Despite the absence of almost all the club senior paddlers, we still managed to be second club. The full results are on the Marathon Website at http://www.marathon-canoeing.org.uk/results/Fladbury2008.htm

The actual day is best reported in pictures. Here's one to whet your appetite - the rest are at http://picasaweb.google.com/nottmkc/Fladbury

World Marathon Championships & Tour de Gudena

Congratulations to Harriet Farish for her 10th place - sorry no further details yet as no results seem to be on the Marathon website.

Congratulations also to Rich Golder on his 4th place at Gudena in Denmark. Go to the Marathon website (see sidebar) for report and more details. Richard has moved closer to Burton on Trent and so will be racing for them in the future, but as a valued member and past NKC Chairman, we still offer him our wishes for his continued success next season.

The Interclubs Regatta

The weather was poor, I'm afraid to say the turn out by most of our paddlers was poor considering that the course is right on our doorstep and from the point of view of the Lightning paddlers, the organisation was disasterously poor. However the performances of those who attended made up for both these factors to some extent.

It was of course mainly veterans and juniors racing and with some outstanding efforts from amongst them we managed to squeeze into 14th place. It seems that the scorekeeping was also poor and a quick check showed that we should have been placed 12th. The matter has been taken up, but so far no response from the organisers.

Our main cause to celebrate is the success of the Lightning paddlers. On the Saturday, our most successful paddlers in both Under 10 & Under 12 boys were denied a final despite much slower paddlers being included. However, they proved their point on the Sunday by producing medal winning performances.

The Lightning efforts, together with their consistent results and considerable participation during the season gave them the Runner Up place in the Lightning Cup. We offer them our congratulations.

Full Results can be downloaded from the Wey Kayak Club website by following links for Sprint then Results. http://www.weykayak.co.uk/

Sorry the weather made photography almost impossible, so no pictures.

Just Another Tuesday

So after all that we return to just another Tuesday at 6:00 p.m. and just another Clifton 5 mile time trial. The only really notable performance came from Tadek who returned from holiday and produced a PB.

More photos on http://picasaweb.google.com/nottmkc/Clifton

Gold

Well unless you've been asleep, out of the country and away from all sources of news, you will have noticed that one of our members - Tim Brabants opted out of doing the Nationals at Worcester with the rest of us and went off with another NKC member to paddle in China. Tim managed something that no other British paddler has ever done - win an Olympic Gold medal at 1000 metres! He followed that with a bronze in the 500 metres, just before some of us went out and strolled round 4 miles at Worcester.
Our congratulations go to him on something that is unique in British Sprint canoeing & places our sport up there with others like cycling, rowing, sailing & swimming.
Let's not forget to congratulate Lucy Wainwright too. "Only" coming 7th in an Olympic final is one of those acheivements that most of the rest of the sprint paddlers in the World would love to have managed. It is put in context when you look at all the members of Team GB who didn't make finals, who finished lower down the rankings than 7th, or the rest of us who are never likely to get selected to represent our country at the very highest level. For those who may have missed previous news, Lucy is already European 200 metre Champion, so comgratulation Lucy on your results.
For those intersted in more details go to http://worldclass-canoeing.org.uk/wcp/wcp-standardtemplate1.aspx

National Marathon Championships 2008

A fairly large club team attended the Nationals at Worcester over the August Bank Holiday. Fortunately several people had cameras with them and the paddling is best viewed in the web albums on Picasa.
First the ones from Shobhanaa http://picasaweb.google.com/nottmkc/NationalMarathonChamps
Beth, Mick & Kath took a few too
http://picasaweb.google.com/nottmkc/Nationals2

Here are a few of the ones Richard took.

http://picasaweb.google.com/nottmkc/Nationals3
Some good results were produced, most notable from Hayleigh, Harriet & Tina. Dave Belbin, Norman & Mick also featured in the National Champs Masters age group medals. There were also medalists in the Divisional races. Shob, Leanna & Craig also featured with divisional prizes in the National Championships youth age group races. Full results here http://www.worcestercanoeclub.org.uk/nationals_entriessofar.html
Congratulations to all those attending as the club gained 7th place overall.

Sunday paddle

Craig, Alice, Ricky & Leanna turned up complete with picnic, to do a slightly extended paddle on Sunday. Our journey took us up the canal to Beeston, up river nearly to the edge of the caravan site at Thrumpton just below the portage for Trent Lock, at a steady pace. Hunger seemed to be gnawing despite it still being the morning, so we turned downstream and stopped on the small beach just above Barton Island for lunch.

The younger paddlers amused themselves in a variety of energetic ways including investigations of the how to swim a tippy boat from the middle of the river to the bank,

cross country running across grassy fields

...and an in depth study of alluvial deposits - their deposition & distribution ...

I rested.

The paddle back was as incident free as the first stage and at a similar pace.

Altogether an enjoyable day out that also happened to include some serious training efforts totalling over 15 miles!