A second medal for Jordan Wood and Riley Fitzsimmons and another strong performance from the K4 500 women’s team were the Australian highlights on day two of the ICF Canoe Sprint World Cup in Duisburg on Saturday (27 May).
Wood (QLD) and Fitzsimmons (NSW) backed up their K2 1000 bronze medal from Friday with another bronze, this time in the K2 500, on Saturday.
There were only centimetres separating the first three boats, but the Australians were thrilled to be among the medals again after running into trouble at the start.
“We kind of fumbled the start a little bit, which is not too concerning in a 500, but it kind of is,” Fitzsimmons said.
“I’m pretty happy that we came back from that horrendous start and managed to climb over a few crews in the last 50, which were really positive signs.”
Wood said he and Fitzsimmons had made strong improvement, even in the space of one week.
“Just the way we approached that was different to the race last week,” he said.
“Apart from our start, which we weren’t too stoked with, I think it was a better tactic.”
The women’s K4 shocked even themselves in Szeged one week ago by taking silver in the final, but showed their form has held up with a convincing win in their heat in Duisburg on Saturday.
The result qualifies the boat straight into Sunday’s final.
“We just wanted to put another good race together like we did last weekend,” Alyssa Bull (NSW) said.
“We just wanted to keep that ball rolling, and it’s great that we could come away with a win.”
Alyce Burnett (QLD) said last week’s result has given the team a new feel, but they are making sure they don’t get carried away.
“Now that we’ve got a bit of confidence it does feel a bit different, but we don’t want to be over confident,” Burnett said.
“We spoke about just going through the processes, and I think that last weekend not having that pressure and expectation was really good.
“We’re just trying to replicate that again. We are still a new crew, and still things to learn from, so we’ll just see how we go.”
In other results, Alyce Burnett finished sixth in the K1 500 final, Alyssa Bull won the B final of the same race, and Murray Stewart (NSW) won the B final of the men’s K1 1000, with Simon McTavish finishing seventh in the same race.
Josie Bulmer (SA) won through to the semi-finals of the women’s C1 200, Stephen Bird (WA) is into the semis of the K1 200, and Friday’s bronze medallist in the women’s K1 1000 Cat McArthur (SA) qualified for the semi-finals of the women’s K1 200.
The Australian men’s team will contest the semi-final of the K4 500.
Racing racing resumes today, Sunday 27 May 2018 for the final day of the ICF Sprint World Cup 2 (25-27 May 2018).
For live stream and results see here
RESULTS FINAL A
WOMEN’S K1 500
1 STENSILS Linnea (SWE)Â 48.285
2 PULAWSKA Anna (POL)Â Â 48.342
3 GUYOT Sarah (FRA)Â 48.473
4 OSTERMAN, Anja (SLO)Â 48.617
5 MLADKOVA, IVana (SVK) 49.386
6 BURNETT, Alyce (AUS)Â 49.485
MEN’S K2 500
1Â GELLE/BOTEKÂ Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â (SVK)Â Â Â 1.28.627
2 MATVEEV/POULINÂ Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â (CAN)Â Â 1.28.854
3 FITZSIMMONS/WOODÂ Â Â (AUS)Â Â Â 1.28.854
Highlights clip men’s K2 1000m (Friday) – bronze medal Riley Fitzsimmons and Jordan Wood
Highlights clip women’s K1 1000m (Friday) – bronze medal Cat McArthurÂ
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