Deborah Kerr and Emma Russell finished seventh at the canoe sprint European Olympic Qualifier in Szeged, Hungary on the inaugural day of the 2024 international season.
There was also a personal best from James Russell and Trevor Thomson, as both crews raced their respective K2 500m events on day one.
It was a battling performance from Kerr (Anker Valley) and Russell (Chelmsford) as they took on the hotly contested women’s K2 500m final.
A strong opening performance from the pair saw them finish third to bypass the semi-finals and progress directly into the final.
With just one Olympic place available for the race winner, it was a close contest between the nine boats during the final, as the Brits posted a time of 1:42.73 to finish seventh overall.
Tokyo Olympian, Kerr, will now turn her attention to tomorrow's Qualifiers as she races the women's K1 500m looking to win the British boat quota.
There was a personal best performance from the K2 500m partnership of James Russell (Nottingham) and Trevor Thomson (Ealing).
The duo were competing internationally for the first time as they took on the Olympic Qualifier, as Russell and Thomson put down an impressive effort of 1:31.54 in their stacked semi-finals to finish sixth.
With just the top three progressing, the pair sadly missed out on the final, but were pleased with how they performed across the two rounds.
Russell said:
“We're happy with how we performed out there. We're a new crew and we only had a couple of races under our belt.
“It was great to get a big hit out, a personal best performance for us. We're over the moon with our time and now we’ll look to go again in a few days time at the World Cup.
“From my side, I'm relatively new to the international sprint scene, so getting use to those high speeds is really important and having Trev getting me up to speed in the first 200 metres is really enjoyable.”
Thomson added:
“There's lots of bits we tweaked between heats and semi-finals which worked great. There’s more we can tweak for the World Cup too. We're delighted with the PB.
“In the next few months we will refine our processes. We have qualities that work well together, and you'll see something great from this boat in the future.
“Onwards and upwards from here”
Racing continues into tomorrow from 08:00, with further European Olympic Qualifiers on the course, as well as the start of the paracanoe World Championships which includes Paralympic Qualifiers.
The full results and start list can be found here
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