World Champion Kimberley Woods won a fantastic kayak cross bronze in her final race ahead of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games next month.
The medal is Britain's third of World Cup in Krakow, Poland, with Joe Clarke winning K1 gold and Ryan Westley claiming bronze in the C1.
Woods (Rugby) lined up in a competitive final at the third World Cup, as she faced Jess Fox, and two Czechia paddlers in Kneblova and Bekova.
Having won every head to head round so far today, Woods took an early lead ahead of Fox heading into the first upstream.
Unfortunately, the Rugby athlete was pushed out by the Australian into gate four which saw her out of the move into fourth.
Putting the power down, Woods expertly navigated the next upstream, nipping in ahead of Bekova to get into third.
Fighting off the late Czechia athlete's charge, Woods secured the bronze, her first medal of the international season, with her next stop being the Paris Olympics.
She said:
“It's great to get the medal and to do it the way I did it, was awesome. Being fourth and seeing the girls in front of me, it was hard mentally to keep that hope.
“But I'm super happy to get that bronze medal ahead of Paris.
“I always have a top two mentality in the rounds, but I can get away I will. The early rounds were definitely tough today, and getting ahead and taking confidence from those.
“I took on the upstreams confidently too which is great.”
Excited to see the kayak cross discipline make its Olympic debut next month, she continued:
“I'm really looking forward to it now. It's great to end this part of the World Cup series with a medal round my neck. It wasn't gold but I'm still really pleased.
“It'll be great to get some rest before a training camp in Paris ahead of the Olympics.”
Three-time World Champion Joe Clarke MBE (Stafford & Stone) missed out on a place in the final as he finished third in his stacked semi-final.
Already with a gold medal under his belt this weekend from the kayak slalom on Friday, Clarke progressed nicely through the rounds to reach the last eight.
Sadly for the Paris-bound athlete, he lost time at the early part of the course to see himself in third, and with Dougoud (Switzerland) and Prindis (Czechia) perfecting the upstream gates, he couldn't quite make up the ground with the top two progressing.
Mallory Franklin (Windsor & District), Nikita Setchell (Holme Pierrepont) and Jonny Dickson (CR Cats) all fell at the quarter-final stages.
Paris 2024 Olympian, Franklin, and a bronze medallist last weekend in Prague, Setchell, found themselves in the same quarters.
Heading into the upstream first, Franklin was squeezed out as three athletes headed to the same gate seeing her in fourth, whilst Setchell had jumped to second.
It was the same in the second upstream, as Canadian Betteridge leapfrogged into second, and the two Brits missed out in third and fourth. Setchell was retrospectively given a fault for gate one.
Dickson was in the same quarter-final as teammate Clarke, and the two Brits were out in front early on.
With Clarke away, Vit Prindis swept beyond Dickson on gate four with the U23 bronze medallist unable to get catch up during the remainder of the run.
Jake Brown (Tees Tigers) and Phoebe Spicer (Lee Valley) were both knocked out in the first round of heats, finishing third and fourth respectively.
Ben Haylett (Holme Pierrepont) sadly didn't get out of the time-trial stage.