WAIS athletes Alana Nicholls, Jesse Phillips and Steve Bird will this week attempt to help Australia qualify a full quota of Olympic boats for next year’s Games in Rio at the 2015 ICF World Championships in Milan.
The Championships in their own right stand as this year’s peak event, but the Australian team will be renewed in its attempts to push for strong results across all boats in order to send a large team for next year’s Olympics.
WAIS paddler Alana Nicholls had qualified in the individual K1 200m and K1 500m, but will instead focus on the priority K4 500m boat which has the opportunity to secure four seats for the Australian women’s program for Rio.
The K4 crew consisting of Nicholls, Jo Brigden Jones, Naomi Flood and Bernadette Wallace finished fourth in each of their World Cup events for 2015, and WAIS head coach Ramon Andersson believes the boat is well placed for a successful campaign in Italy.
“The build up with the women’s K4 has been great. I feel they are all paddling their best ever and collectively as a four, they’re working really well as a team and hitting numbers in training that no other women’s four has hit before,” he said.
“Alana has been great and has handled the work load beautifully. She is doing an awesome job in seat two. As fast, or faster than she has been before,” Andersson claimed.
The Australians will race in Heat 1, on Friday in a field that includes the reigning World Champions.
“They’ve drawn a hot heat with current World Champs Hungary but I am really optimistic if they execute well they will be right up amongst those crews fighting for medals,” Andersson predicted.
Nicholls will be joined in action by fellow WAIS athletes Jesse Phillips and Steve Bird, who compete together in the men’s K2 200m. The duo has prepared for World Championships with a six week stay in the UK, training with a GB pair.
“Jesse and Steve seem to be in a good frame of mind and are probably the fittest and strongest they have been,” Andersson remarked.
The London Olympians have been fine-tuning under the guidance of national 200m coach Mike Pond with their campaign set to commence in Thursday’s racing, with the boys scheduled to contest Heat 3, with Slovakia, Poland and France all in the frame.
