Marathon Canoe Racing UK

The Spanish K4 series is a two-race international event, with races in Valladolid and Sanabria. This year we entered two teams, a Women’s K4 of Lani Belcher (ELM), Hayleigh Mason (NOT), Fay Lamph (WEY) and Alex Lane (LON), and a Men’s K4 of James Russell (CLM), Matt Johnson (CLM), Nicky Cresser (NOT) and Zyggy Chmiel (NOT).

A summary from the team manager, Paul Dimmock:

A well attended event with Argentina, Czech, Poland, Belgium, Portugal, Hungry and of course Spain all competing.

Both British crews performed well, in Valladolid the men’s race GB were 5th, after problem with a lean which was causing Zyggy at stroke a lot of problems and consequently weren’t as competitive as we believed they could be. A change around with James driving for the race on Sunday resolved the lean issue and the boys were very strong, on the first lap they were in a comfortable 2nd/3rd spot with the Spanish, the Argentinians who won on Saturday looked to be in control and the Hungarians just behind, but sadly on the top (island) turn we bumped the rudder and couldn’t steer effectively for the last 1/2 of the lap and dropped back. The women were very strong all round, won on Saturday much to the disappointment of the Hungarians who claimed an impingement by the GB boat, the Spanish officials weren’t impressed with the Hungarians and so the result stood, on Sunday a great race and the Hungarians just took it from Team GB followed by Spain, a really good race and great effort.

All in all, the team were excellent, they were well organised and supported each other with running boat repairs, and general support. The Federation looked after us well, although one boat was broken when we arrived the two crews used the one larger boat on Saturday, however Sunday with the both men and women on the same start line the repair man struggled to get the women’s boat ready in fact 25 minutes prior to the start, but as I say the team were true professionals and got organised.