Australia’s Jez Jezz admitted to feeling mixed emotions after finishing fifth in the final of the open canoe surface competition at the 2019 ICF Canoe Freestyle World Championships in Sort, Spain, overnight.
Jezz said he was thrilled to have made the final against world-class opposition, but was disappointed he couldn’t put his best tricks together in the medal decider, finishing with a best score of 50.
“I was stoked to be part of the finals today, for sure,” Jezz said.
“But it was not meant to be today. I probably needed to get a score over 100 to get into medal contention, but it wasn’t quite there.
“But that’s okay. That’s paddling, sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. I’m really excited still to be part of the finals. It is hard – I’m part of the committee, announcing, doing some of the media stuff.”
Jezz and partner and fellow paddler Claire O’Hara (GB) recently became parents for the first time, and he admitted that had an impact on his world championship preparations.
“She’s such a gorgeous little girl, but she takes up quite a bit of time, and rightly so,” he said.
“I’m so thankful for Claire, she’s really had to step back from her training. She’s the most successful female paddler of all time, it’s really hard for someone who has given so much to the sport.”
In other results on Wednesday, Australia had three athletes in the qualifying round of the men’s kayak surface, but unfortunately no-one was able to progress to the quarter finals.
Luke Carter finished 60thon 86.67, Christopher Greed was 63rdon 23.33, and veteran Peter Newland was 65thon 10 points.
Thursday will see the preliminary round of the women’s kayak surface, with Sue Robb Australia’s sole representative.
The World Championships can be followed live via https://www.canoeicf.com
See all results here: https://www.canoeicf.com/canoe-freestyle-world-championships/sort-2019/results
See the schedule here: https://www.canoeicf.com/canoe-freestyle-world-championships/la-seu-2019/schedule
Rewach the C1 finals here:
