With storms happening across Bavaria, the second canoe freestyle world cup in Plattling, Germany, was condensed down to take place all in one day. So with a jam packed day full of freestyle, the competition had to run smoothly.
K1 Men
Kicking off the event was the K1 men, paddling a feature that was very different to just a couple of days before. All of the Brits showed their class and adaptability, with everyone placing in the top 20.
Harry Price and Ben Higson again showed their ability, breaking into the top five. Unfortunately, Harry wasn't able to replicate his gold medal performance and finished in 5th place. Ben landed just ahead of him in 4th position with a respectable 1533 points. It was Tom Dolle of France who clinched gold, Tomasz Czaplicki of Poland took silver, and his polish teammate Bartosz Czauderna the bronze.
K1 Women
In the heats Lowri Davies took an early lead, even finishing off her ride with the crowd pleaser move called the Harry Potter. Tamsyn McConchie was hot on her heels in the third heat, aiming for some big moves and claiming the points. As the stacked heats of women continued, positions changed, Lowri dropping to 14th and Tamsyn to 15th.
Becky Green improved on her world cup 1 performance, breaking into the top 10, securing an 8th place finish. Ottilie was fresh off a silver medal, and keen to add to her vast collection of gold. She Tackled the feature well, but it wasn't to be her day as the 2019 world champion Hitomi Takaku's experience shone through to take the win. Ottilie claimed her second silver medal, and Zofia Tula of Poland snatched the bronze.
C1 Men
The weather was determined to be a theme of this event, with a thunder storm pausing proceedings just three runs into the C1 men’s event. However, when the competition got back underway, the Brits came out flying. Two consistent runs from Harvey Hardwood put him in a strong position in his heat, finishing 8th overall.
Matt Stephenson came down with a big first run, catapulting him up into third position. Despite a wrestle with the feature on his second run, he held ontop his position to claim his first international bronze medal. Silver went to Tom Dolle of France, and gold to Landon Miller of the USA.
C1 Women
The women took to the feature ready to set the C1 standard, and they didn’t disappoint! Tamsyn McConhie bossed her boat around the feature, spinning it with ease, finishing in 11th place.
Becky Green made a strong bid for the podium, putting a solid first ride in. She went all out, using up every second of her run. Unfortunately, she just missed out on the podium, finding herself in 4th position. Ottilie was last to go, and left it all to do on her second ride. But if anyone could deliver it's Ottilie. And sure enough she came out and threw down. It was only a fraction of the ride we had previously seen in the week, but it was enough to send her straight into the gold medal position. Lucia Hacker of Germany took silver, and Anica Shacher had the bronze.
K1 Men Junior
The junior men put on yet another amazing show, it will be exciting to see some of these boys progress into the senior category for next year. Youngster Math Cradock put on an outstanding performance, stringing together two solid rides to place him 8th overall. Unfortunately, it wasn't Timmy Hill's day, as a costly flush on his second run pushed him down to 12th place.
At the top of the leaderboard the fight was between Jonas Hermann of Austria, James Ward of Britain, and Tim Rees of Germany. The top spot swapped hands with every ride. By the time everyone had been, Jonas took bronze, James of GB took silver and Tim took his second gold.
K1 Women Junior
It was thrilling to see the range of tactics on display in the junior women's class. Some paddlers looked to play it safe with spins and shuvit's, while others still looked for the bigger riskier moves. Sophie Macken of Britain managed to string together a whole range of spins and shuvit's making the most of the link bonus points that were on offer. She managed to spin her way up into 9th place.
Isabella Wormall of Britain came out all guns blazing on her first run, landing huge mcnasties and collecting the air bonus points on them. She landed a huge 503 points, enough to win the event with a ride to spare! She still came out for run two and showed that she really did deserve the gold with another 386 points being added to her total. Leah Hough of Ireland took silver and Jule Sax of Germany the bronze.
OC1
With the feature less retentive than the previous day, and an OC1 boat having at least 40 litres of water in it, it was a tough competition. GB's Connor Proud pulled off a fantastic second run of 100 points, shooting him up the leaderboard and into 5th place, only 50 points off the podium.
The podium consisted of the same paddlers as it did at world cup 1, but in a shuffled order. Eoghan Kelly of Ireland took bronze again, Landon Miller of USA took silver this time, and Germany's Philip Josef claimed his gold.
Squirt
The youngun Sophie Macken of Britain came out and excelled yet again. Laying down some impressive surface moves backed up by a valiant go at getting the mystery multiplier. Tamsyn of Britain took the fight to teammate Ottilie Robinson Shaw for the topspot. Ottilie has quickly built herself a reputation of being a powerhouse in this event, often laying down scores that would beat the best of the men.
Tamsyn's first ride of 1546, a PB for her, was barely 100 behind Ottilie's huge 1653 ride. This meant it was all to play for in run 2. Tamsyn's surface routine was immaculate, but she didn't manage to hit the mystery move as she did the first time round, leaving her with 1146 points, a total of 2693. Last up was Ottilie, who sat in second after one run, with Tamsyn in her sights. Ottilie set to work with her trademark superclean splitwheerls, tricky woo's and screws. Topped off with maximum multiplier from her mystery move gave her another ride over 1500 points, 3188 in total. So it was Gold for Ottilie, Silver for Tamsyn, and bronze for Germany’s Nele Barwich.
Rounding off the world cups were the men's squirt paddlers. The battle for the podium positions was tight, with three Brits, Sam wilson, David Rogers and Alex Edwards, all within 300 points of each other. It was Sam's second run of 1340 that put him in strong contention, backed up by his first ride of 900 points. David Rogers was looking to improve on his bronze medal from world cup 1, and put down two super consistent runs, both around the 1100 point marker, just missing out on the mystery moves he has been dialling in during training. Alex showed his surface routine skills, what he has become known for in the paddling world. Making the most of the clean and artistic bonuses, backing it up with a mystery multiplier too. David did enough to claim his second bronze, and Alex took the silver medal. However it was German local Mike Lochny that blew everyone away with his second run score of 1953! This coupled with his first run was enough to take the gold medal, and in dominant fashion.
Another successful world cup for Great Britain with more medals to add to the tally despite some challenging conditions. A huge congratulations to all the paddlers and the organisers for making the most of sudden changes and tricky circumstances.
Gold – Ottilie Robinson Shaw x2 (Women’s Squirt & C1 Women)
Isabella Wormall (K1 Women’s Junior)
Silver – Alex Edwards (Men’s Squirt)
Tamsyn McConchie (Women’s Squirt)
James Ward (K1 Men’s Junior)
Ottilie Robinson Shaw (K1 Women)
Bronze – Matt Stephenson (C1 Men)
David Rogers (Men’s Squirt)