On the fourth day of the ICF Freestyle World Championships, the juniors finally took to the water, seeing four British paddlers moving through to semi finals. The finals took place for the C1 events also, with more medals being handed out.
After a short delay in getting the paddling going due to adverse water conditions, the junior women's K1 event started the day. All three GB paddlers were in the second heat, giving them some friendly faces in the starting eddy. First to take to the wave was Sienna Edwards, making her international debut. With the wave towering over her, she showed great control spinning her boat around in every direction possible. This performance put plenty of points on the board for Sienna, seeing her finish in 8th place and moving through to the semi finals. Following her was Issie Wormall, at her second world championships. Some unfortunate flushes saw her miss out on the semi final in 16th place. Last off was Niamh Macken, silver medalist from 2022. You saw her settling into the wave throughout her rides, pushing for bigger and bigger moves. This paid off as she finished in 6th place, bagging a spot in the semi finals.
Next up was the junior men's K1, with only one member of the team having competed at a world championships before. Timmy Hill was the returning team member, and he was off in the very first heat. Timmy has spent lots of time out in Columbus on the wave over the summer, and this practice was reflected in his rides. Timmy moves through to the semi finals in 4th place. The second heat saw good friends and GB teammates Sam Rowland and Jools Gardener take to the wave. Jools put on an impressive performance, showing how powerful and snappy he can make his tricks. Some good air bonus points saw him soar to the top of the leaderboard, moving to the semi finals in 1st place. Sam Rowland started his runs well, putting a solid 123 points on the board. However, his next couple of rides ended far too soon and he was unable to add any more points to his total. It was a 20th place finish for Sam on his debut.
The first final of the day was for the C1 women, where three out of five paddlers were British! First to drop onto the feature was Jak Fantastic, who scored a shuvit on her first run. Unfortunately she was unable to make the feature the following two runs, finishing in 5th place. Tamsyn McConchie was next up, looking to add to the medal she had picked up in the squirt event on monday. A confident first run put Tamsyn in the mix for the medals, but it was a high flying third ride that fermented her place on the podium with a bronze medal. Last up was defending World Champion, Ottie Robinson-Shaw. A steady first ride was all it took for Ottie to lay one hand on that gold medal. Being last off meant that by her third and final ride, Ottie knew she had the World Champion title, but she wanted to show what she was capable of. Throwing a huge back panam and nice blunts, Ottie racked up 175 points and showed why she is now two times World Champion for women's C1.
It was great to be out there and win another medal. I can’t wait to get back to training and improve my C1 paddling for the next World Champs!
– Tamsyn McConchie