Australia’s medal haul at the ICF Canoe Sprint Championships in Canada continued overnight, with silver in the Men’s K1 500 and Women’s K4 500.
Olympic champion Jean van der Westhuyzen delivered an impressive final in the men’s K1 500 to win the silver medal, behind Czech Republic’s Josef Dostal.
Almost a year to the day since van der Westhuyzen won the Olympic gold medal with teammate Tom Green in Tokyo, he once again stood on the podium.
In the Women’s K4 500, dual Olympian Aly Bull joined a fresh faced team of Ella Beere, Alexandra Clarke and Yale Steinpreis to bring home the silver medal.
After just six months together in the boat, the team were able to deliver an impressive finish behind Tokyo Olympic bronze medalists Poland.
For Bull, the most experienced member of the team, she couldn’t have been happier with her team’s performance.
“It was awesome! We had a cracking start, the boat run in the middle was quite good, then we just hung on for that last 100 or so metres which was really hard, but stoked to come away with the medal,” she said.
Women’s Sprint Kayak Coach, Rene Olsen said: “I’m feeling incredibly proud of the girls, it’s been amazing the trust and commitment that they have had to the team and the High Performance Program.
“Hopefully it can be a good start of a new generation for Paddle Australia that can really pave the way for a lot of good results over the years,” he said.
The two medals overnight bring Australia’s medal count to four from the ICF Canoe Sprint and Paracanoe World Championships, with paracanoe stars Ben Sainsbury and Dylan Littlehales collecting gold and bronze medals respectively.
In other results Tom Green narrowly missed the podium in the Men’s K1 1000, finishing 4th. Aly Bull was 0.32seconds off a medal in the Women’s K1 500, finishing fifth.
Making her World Championships debut Kathleen O’Kelly Kennedy had a personal best to finish ninth overall in the KL3. Paralympian Susan Seipel finished fifth overall in the KL2 200.
Steinpreis and Beere also joined up in the Women’s K2 500 to finish fifth, just 0.64 seconds off a medal place.
The Aussie men’s K4 500m the team of Pierre van der Westhuyzen, Fletcher Armstrong, Jackson Collins and Noah Havard finished 12th overall.
The Canoe Sprint & Paracanoe World Championships are streamed live on Planet Canoe YouTube.
Results available HERE. See the event schedule HERE. Find out more information HERE.
Final day of racing is coming up, starting 11:00pm AEST Sunday 7 August 2022.
