The end of November would bring the first of the BUCS canoe events of the season with the University of Nottingham entering athletes into multiple disciplines at the Wild Water Racing in Perth & Kinross, Scotland. The event brought great success for our canoeists in 2021, and the team headed north with hopes of a similar performance.
The event would be split across two days with the first day, Saturday 26th allocated for sprint events, whilst the Sunday would be for the classic disciplines. Taking on the Grandtully rapids, Nottingham’s Luke Shaw and William Scammell would take the top two spots on the podium in the Men’s K1 to win gold and silver respectively, which would see Shaw retain the same title he had won a year earlier. Reflecting on the event scholar Luke Shaw said "It was nice to go back to BUCS WWR in Grandtully a year later and I was happy to retain the Mens K1 Individual Classic title from last year. WWR is quite different from what I train for day to day but it makes a fun change."
Matching this feat in the Men’s C1 would be their Nottingham team mates Gabriel Keen and Ed Dickinson who would also finish ahead of the pack to bring the top two medals back to Nottingham. Having gone up against each other in the C1, Keen and Dickinson would combine for the C2 discipline. Their subsequent performance showed that they could deliver both individually and as a team as they secured the C2 gold to mark a hugely impressive weekend for both athletes.
In the Women’s C1 event, scholar Rachel Ellis would be the highest finisher in a subsequent train of Nottingham places with Ellis securing bronze just ahead of teammates Tazmin Brown and Becky Green.
However, team success would again be in the water for the Nottingham squad as both the Open Team and Mixed Team events would prove the strength in depth on show for the #GreenandGold. The Open Team event would end with the familiar sight of Nottingham athletes in the top two and claiming gold and silver, ahead of Nottingham Trent in third. Ed Dickinson, Finn Johson and Reilly Vernon would pip Luke Shaw, Toby Marlow and William Scammell for the gold. In no great surprise, the Mixed Team event would garner the same 1st and 2nd places for the #GreenandGold, but it was nearly all three of the medals returning to Nottingham on this occasion. Congratulations to Macy Kang, Rachel Ellis, Tazmin Brown, Ed Dickinson, Gabriel Keen and Toby Marlow on their mixed medals. The third of the three Nottingham teams that entered went on to narrowly finish 4th, only emphasising the huge performances across the weekend from all our canoeists.
Congratulations to all of our athletes for their top quality performances which saw the University of Nottingham claim 522 BUCS points, nearly double the amount of the University of Newcastle in second. The impressive haul of points, medals and victories for the squad marked a brilliant opening competition to this year’s BUCS Canoe events and the squad will be hoping for more of the same in 2023.
Full results from the event can be found here.
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Posted on Thursday 15th December 2022