It was a great first international event at the new canoe slalom venue, but UK paddlers, including David, narrowly missed out on podium places.
The International Canoe Federation (ICF) 2011 Canoe Slalom London Invitational Event – 28th to 31st July at Lee Valley White Water Park was an Olympic test event and ICF ranking race. Visiting nations were also using the event as part of their selection races for places in their own Olympic teams.
Prior to the event, David said, “It will be great to have a big race here with all the top athletes from around the world coming over to our whitewater course to compete. LOCOG the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games are shutting the site down in order that they can get it all set up for the Olympic test event.”
Following the heats and semi finals, David was pleased to have qualified for the final and paddling well unfortunately he picked up two penalties, which ended the day in 6th place. However, focused on the positive, David shared his thoughts on the event, “To finish sixth in C1 and fourth in C2 were very respectable results and with a year still to go until the Olympic Games it was certainly something good to build on. The experience of the competition on the course in London had been great and in both classes things weren’t far off. It was a case of small margins and not far off where I wanted to be.”
In the C2 final David and Richard Hounslow saw the bronze medal evaporate when the German C2 team successfully appealed against a time penalty, resulting in David and Richard missing out on the podium to be placed 4th.
With the Olympic test event out of the way, the next few weeks will be all about the forthcoming World Championships in September with the event being the first phase in the GBR team’s Olympic selection process. David will be traveling back out to Bratislava to train ahead of the competition which will take place 7th to 11th of September.
First though, he is looking forward to competing at the World Cup finals in Prague on the 14th of August.