Aussie K4 Crew Return to A Final at World Cup II

Published On: 4 June 2019

Jaime Roberts and the Australian women’s K4 500 crew raced in the A Final at last weekend’s World Cup II in Duisburg, finishing sixth.

The finals appearance for the Aussie girls was an improvement on their World Cup I performance in Poland where the crew – minus Roberts – paddled home for a second place finish in the B Final.

With national team selectors using the opportunity to trial combinations ahead of this year’s World Championships in Hungary, Roberts returned to the four member boat in Germany and helped the team crack an A Final berth, where she was joined by Alyce Burnett, Alyssa Bull and Cat McArthur.

Roberts said she’d taken a straight forward approach to the race strategy in Duisburg and was pleased with how it panned out across the heat, semi and A Final races.

“I jumped into seat two this weekend and I thought let’s get out from the start and give it some gas and I think we executed that the best we could. I put my best foot forward and I’m pretty happy with how we went.”

McArthur was similarly pleased to see progress but said the group would not rest on their laurels.

“We are definitely happy to be in the A final after not being there last weekend. This weekend we improved each race and that’s a positive to take from it. Sixth is still sixth but I think you got to look at the positives as well,” McArthur said.

With the first Olympic qualification opportunity for Australia coming up in August at the Canoe Sprint World Championships, Burnett outlined the team’s prime goal in Hungary and said it would be a big challenge for the group.

“Obviously come August it’s Olympic qualification and the top ten boats will make it.

“So, placing sixth this weekend is good but a few top crews were missing and I think we still have a lot to improve on.

“Everyone steps it up again come August, come world champs, so we can’t be complacent that’s for sure.

“I think we now need to go back to training and try a few things and really improve on the base that we’ve got now and hopefully come August we’ll be right up there,” Burnett summarised.