Two updates – Tommy McDowell and Luke Brown.

Tommy McDowell – Reports in for Tommy tell us he has returned from the World Champ Canoe Slalom races in Australia where he placed 40th in Under 23 C1 Men. It is a credible result for someone his age – he has 5 more years in this age bracket. His category ended up being the most competitive of all at this World Champs – with 46 top athletes from 33 countries and the highest proportion of experienced athletes competing for 30-spot progression to semifinals in U23 C1M. This was a very tough slalom course (big water is always more punishing for C1 than K1) where many top athletes came to grief and two C1 M paddlers (1 Junior and 1 U23) were injured – all of Tommy’s runs were at an acceptable level with no major mistakes.

In the U23 C1M team run (three paddlers going down the course at the same time, with Patrick Washer from the Junior team joining Ben and Tommy) he paddled the best, according to the National Head Coach, responsible for just one of the 7 touches made and no mistakes that would cost the team time. The team placed 9th beating not just Taiwan and Canada, but strong teams from Poland, Australia and even Spain.

Overall, amazing results for NZ- with everybody noticing the tremendous improvement in NZ team competitiveness. Two medals – silver C2M Jr and bronze in C1W U23 Teams – were the first ever won by NZ at canoe slalom World Champ events. In Jr K1M, Callum Gilbert came 8th and in Jr C1M James Thwaite 13th, which were also the best NZ individual results, ever. (Tommy is ranked above James, based on NZ ranking race series).

Tommy came back very energized and enthusiastic and (despite lots of schoolwork to catch up on) is already implementing his new winter training program sent by the National Coach.

Luke Brown – Luke’s father writes to tell us that 10yr old Luke has recently played in three tournaments, the Nelson U10Junior Open, the Canterbury Champs U10 and the Canterbury champs U11.

He won the Nelson Junior open DBLS U10, and was runner in the singles.
In the Canterbury champs, he competed in U10 singles and doubles, and the U11 singles.

Luke made the semi finals in all three events of which the boy, or boys that knocked him out went on to win the tournament.

These results have given Luke confidence and also determination to train more and harder. Now that winter has come in there will be less tournament play but he will continue to train.

His next event is representing Nelson as part of the NBTA team competing against Marlborough.

Congratulations to both these boys!