WAIS kayakers Jesse Phillips and Steve Bird have made a strong start to their 2015 European season with a sixth place finish in the men’s K2 200m at World Cup 1 in Portugal.
The duo was joined in action by training partners; Alana Nicholls – who narrowly missed bronze in the Australian women’s K4 500m crew, Jaime Roberts – who on debut made the A Final of the women’s K2 200m with Burnadette Wallace and Brodie Holmes who competed in both the men’s K2 200m and K1 200m.
Portugal served up choppy, difficult racing conditions but it didn’t prevent a tense final in the men’s K2 200m with less than a second separating the top six.
Phillips and Bird clocked 32.156sec in their first final on international waters for 2015, with victory going to the Hungarian crew of Sandor Totka and Peter Molnar (31.168).
Alana Nicholls was seventh in her K1 500m final, posting a time of 1:51.384min before combining with Australian teammates Jo Brigden Jones, Naomi Flood and Bernadette Wallace in the K4 500m for fourth place, narrowly short of the home nation crew from Portugal, with gold going to New Zealand.
Jaime Roberts, representing Australia at World Cup level for the first time, contested the women’s K2 200m A Final alongside Wallace, with the duo earning a seventh place finish in a time of 39.292 behind race winners Ana Lehaci and Viktoria Schwarz of Austria (37.336).
Brodie Holmes was fourth in the B Final of the men’s K1 200m (35.320), whilst he and South Australian Callum Dunn combined to narrowly miss the A Final of the K2 200m.
World Cup 2 follows this week from May 22-24 in Duisburg, Germany.
