WAIS paddler Alana Nicholls has produced an impressive campaign in her debut World Championship appearance at Dartmouth, Canada finishing sixth in the final of the K1 200m.
Nicholls – who is fast building a reputation for her power and speed off the mark – qualified for her first ever senior A Final, and performed well, clocking a time of 42.077secs, which was just eight tenths of a second outside of the bronze medal.
Nicholls combined with fellow WAIS scholarship holder and Olympic bronze medallist Lisa Russ along with Jo Brigden-Jones (NSW) and Hannah Davis (SA) in the women’s K4 200m where the crew finished sixth, just one second behind the gold medal winning crew from Germany.
The Australian crew stopped the clock at 36.103secs, showing that Australia is continuing to develop into a strong sprint kayak nation.
WAIS paddler Reece Baker was also competing in his first senior World Championship, and the 24 year-old was unlucky to miss out on the final of the K4 200m final after he and teammates Matt Urquhart (QLD), Chris Alagich (SA) and Chad Alston (SA) finished seventh in their semi-final.
Baker also missed out on a final in the men’s K4 1000m finishing sixth in the B Final, whilst Nicholls and Russ missed out on the Final of the women’s K4 500m after placing fourth in their heat.
WAIS Head Coach Ramon Andersson who was on the team as women’s coach was quite up beat in his assessment when he said, “I think the women are well placed for the next three years as the reality is that some of the Olympic girls were not quite in the same condition as they were in the Olympics which is not a bad thing first year out of the Games. We saw the emergence of Nicholls and also another debutant in Bridgen Jones who made K1 finals in the 500m and 1000m and the 200m K4 showed they have the fire power to match the best augers well for the coming few years”.
