WAIS kayakers have competed successfully at the 2013 Sprint Canoe World Championships in Duisburg, Germany with Alana Nicholls racing two finals and the men’s K2 200m squad setting a new personal best in winning a B Final.
In the first major international competition since last year’s London Olympic Games, the Australian team sent a strong contingent to Germany for this year’s World Championships.
Alana Nicholls showed some impressive character to qualify for two finals in Duisburg, with appearances in the K1 500m and K4 500m events.
The women’s K1 500m final was contested in trying conditions, with race times well down on heats and semi-finals. Olympic champion Danuta Kozak of Hungary fared best in final, taking line honours in 1:57.39 ahead of Germany’s Katrin Wagner-Augustin and New Zealander Lisa Carrington. Nicholls finished ninth for Australia.
The newly formed Australian women’s K4 500m squad also impressed, in qualifying for the A Final in their first competition together. Nicholls competed with Hannah Davis, Naomi Flood and Bernadette Wallace for seventh place in the final, with Hungary taking gold ahead of Germany and Belarus.
There was a bitter sweet campaign for the Australian men’s K2 200m pairing of Jesse Phillips and Steve Bird, with the WAIS athletes missing out on the A Final, before bouncing back to claim victory in the B Final in personal best time.
The duo impressed in winning their earlier heat in dominant fashion, before struggling to replicate their performance in the semi final. Rather than let the disappointment get the better of them, the Olympic finalists produced a blistering B Final run to win in 32.09 – a time that would’ve gained a sixth place finish in the A Final.
On Friday, WAIS paracanoeist Brock Ingram finished fifth in the final of the legs, truck and arm (LTA) K1 200m.
Ingram acknowledged the giant leap the sport has taken in the past 12 months.
“World records been broken, there is a new world champion, I think the times have dropped three seconds in a year so that’s two years in a row that has happened, the boats are going forward, you just can’t stop the movement,” he said.
To illustrate his point, Ingram’s time of 40.38secs would have secured gold in any previous season.
The relay events rounded out the World Championships in Germany, with Philips and Bird partnering fellow WAIS scholarship holder Brodie Holmes and Lachlan Tame to compete in the men’s K1 200m relay but their fourth place finish in heat 1 was not enough to progress to the final. Alana Nicholls contested the women’s K1 200m relay, but a similar fourth place finish bore the same result for the Australian women’s team.
