RUGBY’s Kimberley Woods has qualified for the Great Britain Under-23 side for both the World and European Championships following an impressive display at the Lee Valley White Water Centre last weekend.
The former Trinity Catholic School pupil returned to the iconic venue which hosted the 2012 Olympic Games for two National Premier Division races which combined with the GB selection event.
The premier races were a standard format race with the best of two runs deciding the winner while there were places up for grabs in the GB side for the World Championships in Krakow, Poland the European Championships in Solkan, Slovenia.
Kimberley had been pre-selected for the GB team in both classes based on her performance in the senior World Championships last year.
The designers presented athletes with two challenging courses over the weekend, both of which were designed with fast racing in mind and they produced very competitive racing across all classes.
On the Saturday, Kimberley, in the Kayak Class, set a fast time on the first run which was good enough for third place.
On her second run she managed a faster time and improved her position to second behind Fiona Penny, the competitor racing for GB at the Rio Olympics.
Sunday saw Kimberley setting the pace in the Canadian class, leading the field by over eight seconds after the first run. On the second run she missed a stroke and lost time realigning the boat which saw her drop into second place.
In the Kayak she had a good first run finishing third overall but on the second run the wind gusted as she approached the last two gates blowing the penultimate gate into her and making the last gate almost impossible to negotiate.
This meant she lost valuable time and picked up time penalties which saw her drop to fourth place overall behind her training partner Mallory Franklin who will be joining Kimberley on the GB Team in the Kayak class.
