WAIS athletes Jesse Phillips (Rivervale) and Steve Bird (Mount Pleasant) produced a personal best in finishing fourth in the B Final of the K2 200m at the World Canoe Sprint Championships in Poznan, Poland recently.
In a pulsating B Final, Phillips and Bird got their traditional quick start to narrowly lead the field through the halfway point before finishing 0.19 sec off the winning crew of Piatrushenka and Valko from Belarus. Piatrushenka had earlier won the K2 500m Gold Medal taking his World title tally into double figures to go with his three Olympic gold medals.
WAIS Head Coach Ramon Andersson said, “I was ecstatic for the boys, as they narrowly missed the A final and while they were made to jump through a number of hoops over a drawn out selection process they were able to PB on the day which was fantastic. It was great to see how close they are to the World Class crew and we can look forward to next season with optimism.”
Steve Bird said, “We felt good, had an unfortunate wobble which I think may have cost us the win. Our starts have been really good, so we’ve got the speed off the line. Just need to maintain that speed for longer! Anyway we look forward to the World University games on the same course and maybe we can go even faster.”
Phillips and Bird will be competing in the World University Championships in Poznan in late August.
Ferenc Szekszardi (East Perth) paddling with Sebastian Marczak (NSWIS) also paddled well in the C200 by recording a personal best in coming fifth in the B final. In a discipline which is not practiced widely in Australia, the crew recorded Australia’s best rest in this event and were competitive beating traditional powerhouses Hungary and Spain.
