Last night, the Club welcomed 85 members and their guests to the Club’s annual Awards Dinner. It was a great evening, with a round up of the year’s events, compered expertly by Nigel, with contributions from team leaders and coaches.
This year’s Trophy winners were announced:
Veteran of the Year – Brian Greenham K2 of the Year – Erika Hutchinson & Cath Drummond Paddler of the Year – Harry Freeland Junior Paddler of the Year – Olivier Mazur Cruse Cup Trophy – for highest points at haslers – Olivier Mazur Sprint Paddler of the Year – Annabel Hutchinson Most Improved Junior Paddler of the Year – Charlotte Fulford Most Improved Adult Paddler of the Year – Cath Drummond Ashes Trophy – for going above and beyond the call of duty – Jo & Evan Shephard Bill Mowbray Trophy – for achievement in the DW race – Nick King Slalom Paddler of the Year – Matthew Perry Swimmer of the Year (because he loves it!) – Jack/Bean
Well done to all the winners, plus all those nominated. It was a tough field.
Natalia, with an army of helpers, cooked a fabulous three course dinner – the best any of us can remember. It was a really enjoyable evening. A huge thank you to all helpers who made the evening happen so effortlessly.
Early October, a small, perfectly formed group of RCC paddlers entered an end of season Division 4 and Open competition at Sharks Canoe Club. Harefield is a lovely little setting and fabulous autumn sunshine set us up for a great day out on moving water!
Matthew Perry did brilliantly, easily topping the table in Div 4 K1 men, winning him a nice commemorative T-shirt and a promotion to Div 3.
Jake Didcock also did really well and was tied in 3rd place in the Div 4 K1 event and also gained a promotion to Div 3.
A long way out in front of the K1 Women’s Open class was Emily Neville, who also won herself a new t-shirt. More importantly however … the prizes were all being handed out by slalom superstar Mallory Franklin (Tokyo Olympics C1 sliver medalist).
As you’ll see from the photos, no one enjoyed the Fun Day on Saturday! It had to be the hottest Fun Day we had ever held – temperatures in the high 20s – and had the most capsizes too. I wonder why?
We had 8 teams with 6/7 people in each team … it was pretty busy and took a lot of shouting to keep everyone up to date with what they were doing. We had the pop-the-balloon ‘death’ race, racing circuits, the chariot race and, of course, tug of war … more like, sink the canoe. The grand finale was the nappy race. What a hoot!
Thanks Brian, it wasn’t an easy job to keep so many people entertained.
Sunday June 10th, the sunniest day of the year so far, and Reading Canoe Club held their biannual K4 race day. Eight clubs took part and we proudly put out 12 out of 21 crews, taking 1st, 2nd and 3rd place in Race C, plus 2nd and 3rd with our junior boys in Race A/B.
Well done Shreyas for doing his first race ever, having only just finished his beginner’s course. And big thanks to Brian and crew for putting on such a great event.
Good weather, over 200 entries and some exciting starts boded well for the Reading Hasler, held on the pre-Jubilee weekend Sunday, 29th May. We had 168 K1 entries and 36 K2 entries.
Results from Reading paddlers was impressive, with
James Nelson 3rd in Div 3 – hot on the stern of the legend that is Ivan Lawler!!! And taking maximum points
Oliver Mazur winning Div 4 ahead of Miklos in 3rd – the first of 4 Reading boats inside the top 5!!!
Sam MacDonald and Georgia Boonham bringing home 1st and 2nd in Div 5 and earning promotions to match.
Max Prins-Mills got 2nd in his first race in 7 and earning promotiion to 6.
Matt Perry and Lisa Bramley earned promotion from Div 9 to Div 8, with Ruth Shephard earning her promotion from A to 9 in the same race.
Jeremy Freeland (with Klara) proved why you should listen to the briefing and was awarded with 1st in Div2K2.
Annabel Hutchinson (with Mollie Ball (Dev)) won Div 4K2 with Kat Wilson (with Victoria Knee (BOA)) behind in 2nd.
Tant Hill, Craig Roberston, Tilla Kubisch and Alice Beeson brought home another one/ two finish in 5K2.
Alina Mayer and Timi took 2nd in 6K2.
Viktoria and Julia Mazur took 2nd in 8K2.
Natalia Malish and Kerstin Kubish had a strong debut in 9K2.
Well done everyone! There were lots of great performances, plus promotions for six paddlers:
Alina, Timi, and Alice Beeson to Div 5, Julia, Natalia and Kerstin to Div 8.
Our new racing ladies! And with promotions!Matthew Perry and Lisa Bramley, K1 Div 9, first hasler for both
Last weekend was an important weekend but not just because it was the Queen’s Jubilee, it was the Seniors’ and Masters’ National Championship in sprints, at the National Watersport Centre in Nottingham.
We had 27 paddlers representing Reading Canoe Club with 88 entries, more than any other clubs at this event!
Conditions were less than ideal, even though the tail wind seemed like a great addition to the races to start with; it soon turned out to be making things rather tricky. There were so many capsizes during the weekend, the rescue boats didn’t know where to go first.
Saturday afternoon they even had to cancel the junior D class races due to the gusty wind!
Our Masters were performing outstandingly at their National Championship, they were getting medals faster than we could count:
Kev Smith achieved Silver in his K1 on 200, 500 and 1000m and took Gold medal in his K2 with Jan Raciborski.
Edgar Boehm took Gold in his 500m K1 (O44) and Silver in his 1000m K1.
Edgar and Laurence teamed up for the O34s K2 and won their race on 500m.
Laurence Plant raced in the O34 category and won every single race he did! 200, 500 and 1000m K1s, all gold !
I also got a in my 500m K1 just simply for paddling down the course, all by myself. it was… character building.
We also had a few Seniors representing us: Georgia F, Alex T, Miklos Jr and our new recruit, Joe Richards who transferred over to us from Norwich.
Our only C1 paddler, Anna was busy too, she was getting medals in every race she did and even won the 5k C1 race in those horrible conditions.
Massive well done to all our juniors for their determination and resilience paddling in those horrible conditions; they did so well tackling the massive waves!
Hanna Nagy smashed the Intermediate Girls category by coming 1st and Ruth Shephard came in 3rd in the same race, 500m K1.
Alice Beeson won her K2 race in Girls D with her partner Poppy from Richmond CC, she also came 2nd in K1 on 500m and 3rd on 200m.
Our Girls Cs and Ds put on a flawless performance in their K4 race and took the win. Well done Tilla, Isabelle, Alice and Charlotte, you made it look so easy even when conditions were so bad.
Hanna was also in a K4 with paddlers from other clubs and came 2nd.
Tilla did very well in her K1 races too in Girls C, she won her K1 1000m and came 3rd on 500m. Charlotte also did very well in Girls C and was flexing her muscles so much, she even snapped her paddle!
Marcell Nagy and Tyler Kinder raced hard in Boys D: Tyler came 2nd on 500 K1 and Marcell was 3rd. The two boys also came 3rd in their K2 on 1000m.
We had strong performances from Annabel Hutchinson in Girls B and from James Nelson in Boys B; James even joined in with the Men’s Open 5km race at the end of the day on Saturday, in horrificly windy conditions.
Little Bean was our only Lightning paddler this time and he tackled his races with great determination. He came 4th in the K2 race and won the K4 Rocket race with paddlers from other clubs.
It certainly was a very successful and windy weekend. Well done to all our paddlers.
