James Russell narrowly missed out on a 5km medal as five Brits were in finals action on the fourth day of the canoe sprint and paracanoe European Championships in Szeged Hungary
Lining up in a stacked men's K1 5000m, Russell (Nottingham) faced up against Pimenta (Portugal), Varga (Hungary) and Pedersen (Denmark) who all boast a mount of huge experience.
He went out hard up to the first turn and stayed within the larger group, before jumping across to the leaders.
Using his marathon experience, Russell maximised his position but couldn't quite keep up with the sprint finishes as he placed a fantastic fourth, just six seconds off the leaders.
Delighted to be in touching distance of the medals, he said:
“I'm really happy with this result. I managed to stay with the top guys are who world-class at a number of disciplines and distances so to be not far off the medals is great,
“It was a tactical race from my perspective. I came unstuck at the sprint finish. I'm happy to be in touch with them but at the same time I've got some training to do as I'd like to be part of that sprint finish next time.
“I've made some great ground with Trev (Thomson) this season in the K2, so I'm excited to see where we can take that going forward. I've also got the marathon season to look forward to.
“The short course is a very similar event to the 5kms, and this has given me a great basis for those events. It's a real confidence boost.”
After an excellent semi-final performance on Friday, Katie Reid (Forth) rounded off a busy four days of racing with a ninth place finish in a stacked women's C1 200m A Final, crossing the line in a time of 49.702.
Kicking off the British action for the day, there was a seventh place finish for Dan Johnson (Chelmsford) as he took on the B Final of the men's K1 1000m, finishing in a time of 3:54.476.
Elsewhere in the 5kms, Anna Palmer (Reading) put in a valiant effort as she finished sixth in the women's C1 5000m final. Her time of 27:36.567 was a minute short of the podium, whilst Jonathan Jones (Fladbury) placed 10th in the men's C1 final in a time of 24:43.263.
James Train, Team Leader for the European Championships, said:
“It's been a really good team atmosphere out here in Szeged. We've had a few athletes who've been on their first international with us and others who are really experienced.
“It's been great to see those really experienced guys support those here for the first time.
“Really pleased for Ellen (Field) to come out here and show what she can do by winning gold, after a big winter training which is positive.
“Stu (Wood) has been an absolute professional coming out here this week and delivering the way he did to win bronze, going through his usual processes.
“Katie reaching the C1W 200m A Final was solid, Xander and Charlie making their international debuts was fantastic to see and showed some great racing out here.
“The standard has been high at these Europeans, and our team came out here with a breadth of goals.
“People are at different stages of their season with some concluding here, whilst others will go on to different events.
“We came here delivering the best that we could and the athletes have come here to deliver some strong runs in a tight turnaround from the European qualifiers.
“A huge thanks to all the staff out here too for their efforts across the week.”