The final day of the ICF freestyle world championships was full of twists and turns, comebacks, and close calls.
Saturday 14th October was the final day of the 2023 freestyle world championships. With it saw the semi finals and finals for the senior K1 categories. The women took to the water first, with the 10 paddlers aiming for a top five finish that would take them through to the finals. The first Brit to go was Heidi Walsh, looking for a repeat of the run that event her the semi final place. Not one for making life easy, Heidi missed the feature on run . However, her third run hit the spot as she threw some huge moves back to back. That shot her up into third and into the finals. Ottilie Robinson-Shaw was last up, seeing the score she needed to make the finals. Ottie showed her class and experience, laying down a run that saw her move to finals in first place.
Next was the men’s semi finals, with Alan Ward flying the flag for the GB team. A sketchy start to his first run saw the pressure build for his second. Years of competition experience allowed Alan to keep a cool head and surf around the wave. He managed to put enough points on the board to progress to the finals in third place.
Women’s finals came next, with two British paddlers in the mix and showing they had enough in them to take a medal. Heidi was excited to have made her first world championship final, and loved every second of her final three rides. The experience alone saw her leave happy, and a 5th place finish was the icing on the cake. Ottie was looking to retain her world champion title that she had won last year in Nottingham. A huge ride from her saw her land 410 points on the board. A big score. Unfortunately, it was quite big enough to secure the title as USA’s Sage Donnelly put the ride of a lifetime down and take the win, gold medal, and world champion title.
Rounding the week off was the senior men’s final. Alan Ward was riding a high, making his first international final in a number of years. His first ride was his best, putting him straight into second place. His fellow finalists were well experienced, all having won medals before. By the time all the paddlers had done their three ridea, Alan had slid to 4th place. Still a personal best for him in recent years. It was Dane Jackson, arguably the greatest kayaker of all time, who took a commanding l and on his first run and held onto it throughout.
A huge congratulations to all the GB paddlers for their performances across the week. Six medals in total for Britain, with three coming from the freestyle powerhouse Ottilie Robinson-Shaw.