Last weekend WAIS-AIS kayaking athletes Jesse Phillips (Rivervale) and Steve Bird (Mt Pleasant) came a very creditable seventh (and 1st Australian)in the K2 200m at World Cup 2 in Szeged, Hungary after strong second place finishes in their heat and semi final.
With 50 countries competing and two entries per country per event allowed (compared to only one entry per country at World Championships) the competition was very tough.
Phillips and Bird certainly showed they are amongst the best starters in the World leading out over the first 20 metres and still in touch at the halfway point, however, the strong headwind conditions probably favoured the bigger, powerful crews who powered home over the second half of the race.
Phillips said, “We were happy with the result, we got a very good start but unfortunately got a bit of a boat wobble just before the 100m mark and lost a bit of momentum. We know we can improve on that result as there are still things that we can work on.”
Bird said, “I think we handled racing in this pressure situation really well. The sport in Hungary is a national sport and to race in front of tens of thousands of people waving banners, blowing horns and so on was an absolute buzz.”
The Australian team performed particularly well coming third overall in the men’s kayak.
This weekend will see the action move to Duisberg, Germany for the third and final World Cup. As part of National Coach Martin Marinov’s plan to get the best crew on the water for World Championships in August, the Phillips-Bird combination looks set to be split for this weekend to partner up with Matt Goble (SASI) and Chris Alagich (QAS) respectively. After this event, Marinov will determine which crews will race offfor this event at the final selection race in early August.
– WAIS coach Ramon Andersson
