Great Britain's most successful female slalom paddler, Mallory Franklin (Windsor) picked up her 18th European Championships medal today, winning bronze in the K1 final in Tacen, Slovenia.
With high river levels impacting the schedule, only the top 12 fastest women from one heat run went through to the final. Mallory secured her spot with her trademark composure, posting a clean run in the heats to go through in fifth place.
In the final, Mallory used all of her experience to negotiate the tricky course with focus and control. She crossed the line with over a second lead before being overtaken by the eventual winner Klaudia Zwolinska of Poland,and Zuzana Pankova of Slovakia who won silver.
But with C1 her focus for this season, Mallory was delighted with the result, despite the changes to the competition format.
“That was really hard work today, I've never paddled this river at such a high level so it was a new experience for us all today,” she said.
“A core skill of slalom is adaptability and focus and I think my experience and exposure to lots of different racing environments really helped me.
“The change in format did add some pressure but I competed in the Pyrenees Cup over the winter which had a similar ace schedule of one run to qualify for the final so that helped me to get into the mindset this morning.
“There's no pressure on me in the kayak this year, I'm racing the next couple of World Cups to get some more start line experience to build my confidence ahead of Paris.
“I've got C1 tomorrow and as the river levels are dropping I'm sure the course and features in it will change again too so I'm just taking this event one run at a time.”
Just 20 minutes after she was presented with her bronze medal, Mallory was back on the water, this time with compatriots Kimberley Woods (Rugby) and Lois Leaver (Edinburgh Schools) in the K1 team event in which they finished in fifth place.
On the K1 team, Mallory added: “There wasn't very long between the medal ceremony and the team event so it was a bit of a rush, and its always really hard to put down two runs so close together.
“The course was tight with close crossovers but we raced well, put down a clean run and we were within touching distance of the medals.”
Kimberley Woods had a strong start in the heats but a couple of touches on gates 11 and 12 meant that she missed out on the final and finished in 15th overall.
Lois Leaver, in her first season on the senior team, finished in 30th place.
Having won his maiden European title in Thursday's Kayak Cross Joe Clarke MBE was the fastest qualifier in the men's K1 heats this morning, despite picking up four penalty seconds.
He was joined in the final by Chris Bowers who put down a fine run to qualify fifth fastest.
But, the unpredictability of the course proved costly for the pair who hail from Stafford and Stone, and they both, along with the two time World Champion local paddler Peter Kauzer and reigning Olympic Champion Jiri Prskavec, picked up 50 second penalties.
Joe finished in 11th place overall with Chris in 12th. CR Cats' Jonny Dickson was 57th.
The trio returned to the water for the men's K1 team final where they finished in 12th place.
The full results from today's racing and the schedule for tomorrow can be found here.
The finals can also we watched for free on Eurovision – click here to find out more