Rarely is business decided on semi final day at any regatta. Today, in Poznan at the first World Cup of the 2012 season, this tenet creaked in the continued bad weather, as Paul Wycherley qualified for the Men’s kayak A final while Tim Brabants did not. In so doing, he levelled the best-of-three series in this high profile challenge with Tim for the athlete place allocated to the host nation for the Men’s K1 1000m event at the Olympic Games.
- Paul Wycherley – made the MK1 ‘A’ final today
Congratulations to Paul, who took 2nd place in his semi-final, following talented Danish paddler, Rene Holten Poulsen, over the line in a time of 3:54.
Tim finished in 4th place in a time of 3:56, behind one of the most recent Olympic qualifiers, Cyril Carre (Fra), confining him to the B final.
The denouement of this particularly British drama will play out next weekend at Duisburg, Germany under the auspices of World Cup 2.
Brabants held the advantage, going into this event, following a win at the April British National regatta where three hundredths of a second separated him from Wycherley. Amazingly such margins can exist over a race that takes typically around 3 minutes 27 seconds to complete on a good day. Conditions in Poland today dictated that the best semi-final time was 3:44.
Other Regatta News
Other news from World Cup 1, on a day that hosted 1000m and 500m racing, included smoke signals indicating Britain’s golden girl, Rachel Cawthorn,
Rachel Cawthorn, riding the waves in Poznan, will race in Saturday’s final (library picture)
is getting back to her old racing form. She won the third fastest semi-final and will face familiar adversaries such as Nicole Reinhardt (GER) and Inna Osypenko-Radomska (UKR) in the ‘A’ final. This will be a harder examination of her return to fitness after a injury and illness interrupted season in 2011. Louisa Sawers experienced the misfortune of disqualification in her heat for an underwieght boat.
200m action on Saturday
Britain’s canoe sprint medal generating machine, the 200m squad, including Ed McKeever, Liam Heath & Jon Schofield, will start their competition tomorrow. No doubt the capture of more treasure for their burgeoning medal troves is in the plan.
Photos: Courtesy of AE Photos
Sprintwise's Blog 