Brunel Canoeists shine at National Championship
With National selectors looking to develop a new team of junior sprint canoists post London 2012, athletes from Brunel University did not disappoint the selectors and crowd at the National Water Sports Centre in Nottingham.
Brunel students achieved a string of strong results putting beyond doubt that Brunel is an attraction for young canoeing stars of the future. Brunel alumni Steve Harris, National Coach of Para Olympic Canoeing for GB, was delighted to see Brunel’s success “it’s fantastic, Brunel is really blazing away here, it is without doubt the No. 1 University of choice for athletes wishing to combine studying and canoeing” he said with his typical enthusiasm for the sport and University.
In the K1 (single Kayak) 1,000m Sport Scholar Marton Simmons came home with an impressive 7th and Best Newcomers awrard, which considering the company, was indeed a huge achievement in his first senior year. The race was won by Brunel graduate Jon Boyton who beat Tim Brabants (Olympic Gold medallist in Beijing), Marton’s performance certainly signified the dawning of a new era of athletes as he builds for his 2016 Olympic campaign.
In the pairs event, new boys on the block Ryan Sneddon and Dan Staines shook the canoeing establishment with an impressive 3rd in the k2 1,000m, competing against World Class funded athletes. Ryan and Dan have not long been in the sport, they have focused on achieving the best from their training whilst studying at Brunel, “training has been really tough” said Ryan “especially when we knew that the more established athletes were away warm weather training whilst we were in England in the snow and bitter wind, but the University have been hugely supportive and the result reflects that.” Ryan and Dan will be scrutinised by GB coaches to evaluate how performances can be improved with the GB squad athletes.
In the fours it was Spots Scholar Matt Robinson who powered home with three other GB squad athletes to take a very impressive win and rounded up the men’s 1,000m racing, Matt’s four dominated the race from start to finish.
In the women’s field Brunel did not have such dominance but Steph Roberts and Jenny Swallow made the 500m and 200m finals. it was Jenny who established the club with the Union of Brunel students last year.
Paul Dimmock Director of Sport at Brunel and former International athlete and now coach, said “the athletes were superb and Brunel’s position as the No.1 canoeing University is a credit to all the athletes, Brunel was certainly the talk of the Regatta, I had 17 potential students and their parents ask me about studying and training at Brunel over the weekend, in addition it was agreed that men’s National Coach would be directing his athletes to Brunel, so we anticipate even more successes to come.”
