New Clifton "World Records"

There are several things that need reporting here in the way of events and results, but one that is worth noting before it goes un-noticed is a new "World Record" for the Clifton Race. It's all the more important because it is the most long standing.

The the oldest Winter World record has been broken - twice by Matt Lawrence in Sprint C1 he did 39.04 this week and 40.55 last week. He also set a new All Comers C1 world record at the same time.

Previous best times for the overall record were James Lee 39.12 and for the Winter, Willy Reichenstein 42.05 way back in 1979. Both previous best times were done in daylight as well.

For those not familiar with C1 paddling, it indicates just how good Matt is. He is the best C1 paddler we currently have in this country and we are fortunate that he is paddling with us at the moment. As he is recovering from illness and probably not yet back to full fitness, just imagine how good he will be in the future.

Clifton

The Trent was at normal levels, there was no thunderstorm, it was fairly sunny if a bit breezy, in fact almost what we would expect for the time trial this time of year. This could account for the whole crop of PBs, Season's Bests & a World Record.
The straight PBs in K1 were from Michelle, Beth & Simon. The K2 PBs were from Dave & Alice, Martin & Minnie, Michael & Becky, Kath & Laura, Mick & Ricky.
The season's bests were Norman & Des who did a PB and now hold the Over 50s K2 time for this season. Paul & Shobhanaa took the Veteran Junior season's best with their PB of 35:50. Dave & Matt captured the Mens K2 time for this season.
The truly great performance came yet again from from Hayleigh, this time in K2 with Tina who now hold the all time World record for Ladies K2. Well done Tina that's a neat way to stay in the record books after Hayleigh broke your other World Records in the past few weeks.
Altogether there were 37 people paddling tonight.

Tuesday Night

Now the Times Book is available, it is possible to record just how successful the Tuesday evening Clifton race was this week!
At the top of the list is Hayleigh's outstanding result of 34:59 which is both a PB & a new "World Record" for Ladies K1. Well done Hayleigh from all of us.
Shobhanaa, now with a PB of 45:22 took over a minute off her time. Simon managed a PB of 43:48, Tom is now down to 36:44 & Michael, despite his aborted attempt on the White Water boat World Record, did manage a PB of 38:19. Perhaps he needs to approach it a little more "quietly" to get the result he wants!

Tuesday - Clifton & other things.

Had there not been a BT engineer fixing the club phone & the proximity of a fire engine, one wonders what the outcome would have been for the club & for Ray Sims! As it is, the disaster is confined to his workshop & we express our sympathy with him, but are grateful that it was just his workshop & not him that went up in smoke!
The river is back to normal & suddenly everyone was out in K1s again. Congratulations to Shobhanaa for taking over a minute off her PB.
Rumour has it that Hayleigh did a World Record too, but the times book is nowhere about to confirm it!
Beth C had a small select group out tonight too, with Laura in a K1 for the first time. Beth said she looked so comfortable in it that you wouldn't have guessed it was the first time.

Round the Bridges - World Record

The weather was not perfect, nor was the river but at least it was down. Juniors outnumbered seniors with the whole range from 8 to 16. There was a great crop of PBs with the most outstanding being Hayleigh's new World Record for Women's K1 which has stood since Tina set it in 1993. A great time - 5:29, sadly I hadn't got my camera because she looked as awsome as her time suggests! (I don't use that word lightly either!)
Congratulations also go to Tadek, Zyggy, Minnie, & Joe. Tadek's is possibly a World Record Lightning Time at 8:11. The record books don't show what boats people use.
First time sub 6 minutes for me this year I think - my all time PB is in sight - less than 10 seconds to go.