European Championships 2009

1st July 2009, Racing

The 2009 European Championships were in held in Brandenburg, Germany.  It is a course that hasn't been used for a long time and I had never raced there before.  When we arrived we could see why it probably hadn't been used very often as it looked my like the sea than a regatta course - the sailing boats moored up always made us think that this was maybe the prevailing weather for this course!!

The first day of training was interesting as the waves were very big and I was glad to be in the back of the K2 with Lani, she was getting very wet in the front of the boat.  Luckily by the time racing started on the Thursday the weather had calmed down and racing conditions were OK.  We had our K2 500m heat on Thursday afternoon, we didn't have a great start and felt a bit sluggish off the start but kept working our way up and had a great finish.  We managed to get past the Russians in the last 100m to take 3rd place and a place in the final.  It was great to go direct to the final but we knew we had some work to do before then.

We race 200m on the Friday, we had a good heat and qualified directly to the final.  In the final we had a good race and did all we could and finished 5th, very very close to 4th.  We had raced well and our starts had improved from Thursday so we were happy with our results.

We had a day off to train on Saturday and then our K2 500m final on Sunday.  We had a good race in the final, and a great start which we had been working on so we were pleased with that.  We were still coming through strong at the end and finished in 5th place which we were pleased with, and I think there is more to come.  A successful championships and my best result at a European Championships in a nOlympic event.  I must also congratulate Rachel on a fantastic race to finish 3rd in the K1 500m even - a great result.

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