FlowState Issue 8

2020 EUROPEAN CHAMPIONSHIPS
T
he European Canoe Slalom Championships (18th-
20th September) saw a very welcome return to
international competition for us and our athletes.
Held in Prague, Czech Republic, these Championships
were a replacement for the original Euros, scheduled
to take place in London in May 2020.
A strong team of athletes was in attendance from Ireland,
consisting of Eoin Teague, Noel Hendrick and Alistair
McCreery in the K1M, and Liam Jegou, Robert Hendrick
and Jake Cochrane in the C1M. With a coaching team of
Eoin Rheinisch, Nico Peschier and Richard Lee travelling
with them. The first day of competition, Friday 18th, was by
far the busiest, with all categories racing throughout the
day in the qualification rounds of the race. In the K1M Noel
Hendrick succeeded in progressing through to the
semi-final, finishing 10th in the second round of
qualification, just slipping through to the next round. Eoin
Teague was the next best placed, finishing 36th overall,
falling victim to time pentalties. Ali McCreey placed 45th,
again suffering from penalties. The C1M had a very
exciting day of racing with Liam Jegou, Tokyo Olympian,
finishing second overall in the qualification round with a
stunningly fast run, easily qualifying for the semi final.
Jake Cochrane also joined Liam in the semi final, placing
4th in the second round of qualifying. Robert Hendrick
came unstuck with penalties in his second run, finishing in
26 place overall.
Saturday then, was showtime. Semi finals, finals and
medals to be won. Noel Hendrick, first off in the K1M semi
final, put down a very solid run, placing him shy of the top
15 final, in 21st place. Racing again later in the day with
Eoin Teague and Ali McCreery in the K1M team event, Noel
joined his team mates in a 12th place finish, suffering
penalties in a very difficult race.
Sunday again was another big day with medals up
for grabs in the C1 class. Jake, off early in the semi final,
put down a storming run, just slipping off a wave at the
bottom of the course and having to paddle back up the
eddy costing him time and a probable place in the final.
None the less finishing in an excellent 12th place. Liam
Jegou off late in the semi final, couldnt recover from early
penalties and finished in 15th.
The highlight of the competition came later in the
afternoon where the Irish C1 Men took a silver medal in the
team race, behind the Slovenian Team, the newly crowned
European Champions. Liam Jegou, Jake Cochrane and
Robert Hendrick put together a very solid run to take
Irelands first team medal in a long time, doing so on what
was a very difficult course. Having been the second team
off in the race the 3 Irish athletes had a nervous wait,
watching teams including World, European and Olympic
Champions fall victim to the difficulty of the course in
Prague, and only being beaten to the gold by a strong
Slovenian team featuring the newly crowned individual
European Champion, Benjamin Savsek.
WORLD CUP, SZEGED
After the recent slalom action, canoe sprint made a very welcome return to international
competition. The season kicked off with a World Cup race in Szeged, Hungary, which ran from
the 25th-27th of September.
Team Ireland had only one competitor attending- Barry Watkins. Barry raced in the the K1 500m and 1000m.
While many teams had elected to not travel to the event due to Covid, the field was still awash with heavy
hitters; world, European and Olympic champions. The first race of the event for Barry was held on the Friday
morning with the blue ribbon K1 1000m. Conditions on the morning were very difficult, with a strong headwind
blowing which slowed down the race times. The conditions resulted in a choppy course which made it hard to
run smoothly on. In the 2nd heat of the qualifying round Barry battled through these conditions to come home
in 3min:58.7s to take 5th place in his heat. This resulted in achieving qualification into the afternoons
semi-final. Conditions were no better for the 500m later in the morning, with Barry finishing the tricky race in
1min:56.2s to take an impressive 2nd in his heat and another semi-final spot.
The conditions did not improve for the afternoon’s semi-finals which saw Barry having to race harder
again, battling conditions which were not to his favour or liking. In the 1000m semi-final Barry made what was
a characteristic strong finish to come across the line in 4min:01.92s, 4.09 seconds from a spot in the final.
This result meant that Saturday’s B final in the 1000m awaited. The 500m provided a similar story, Barry
made a late surge to finish in 5th place in an extremely competitive semi-final, featuring 2 athletes who would
go on to take medals in the A Final. These were Fernando Pimenta (POR) and Balint Kopasz (HUN).
Finals day on Saturday provided significantly better conditions, which proved to be a big boost for Barry.
In the B Final of the 500m Barry put in another massively strong finish, picking off the entire field to win the B
Final in a time of 1min:44.36s. This left the Kildare native and Salmon Leap CC member in 10th overall position
for the World Cup. It was to be a very difficult day from there on with a very short turn-around to get recovered
and ready to race the 1000m B Final which was half an hour later. In the B Final Barry would go on to finish 6th
in a time of 3min:52.26s.
As always in sport it was a weekend of ups and downs with some great racing on display from our Irish
athlete, and definitely a long overdue return to competition.
22 23