Yesterday Ant and I had a really awesome race and managed to win a silver medal at the World Marathon Champs here in Portugal. The race was tough to say the least, but Ant and I had a faultless race and were in with a shout of winning gold untill the very end. After a very fast opening lap, we got into a 4 boat break away with the Spanish, Czechs and Portugese after the forst portage. We were being hunted down by 3 crews the whole race. All 3 crews behind us are known for their strong grinding abililty so we had to work hard the way to make sure that we were not caught. In our group the Czech boat had a very strong pull and they werent scared to use it, which helped to keep us clear from the rest of the field. Coming into the last portage all the crews were pretty tense, knowing that the finish was so close. The Spanish put in first with us on their wave. They pulled around the turn and towards the finishing line. Ant and I were feeling great and decided to go woth about 250 meters. We pulled up next to the Spanish and then passed them for a while, but they were very strong and edged back infront of us. We stayed neck and neck fighting it out for the gold medal untill eventually the got the better of and edged clear with about 60 meters to go. Eventhough it was disappointing not to win gold the Spanish were the stronger crew on the day and deserved to win. We had a brilliant race and fought it out till the very end and I am satisfied with that. I had a great time paddling with Ant this year and want to thank him for all the great training and racing together this year. To make our day even more special, my parents, brother, sister in law and cousin came over to Portugal to watch me race. Ant’s father and brother in law were also here to support, so as you can imagine it was very festive after our race and very special to be able to share special times with special people. Unfortunately my girlfriend, Ruvenna, has been writing exams and wasn’t able to come and be here with us. I know that she sat infront of the computer on Saturday and Sunday watching the racing, but I wished that she could have been here watching it live and sharing the excitement with us.

The K1 race on Saturday was extremely hard. I had a terrible opening 2 laps. For some reason I felt as if my heart rate just wouldn’t come down after the opening sprint and found myself in the second bunch about 150 meters behind the leading bunch of four. After the second portage I started to feel a bit better and work very hard to catch the front bunch. The front bunch worked very hard to try keep me off and I spent the whole 3rd lap at the back of the group. I eventually got myself onto the first wave on the 4th lap and tried my best to recover for the end sprint onlap 7. Coming into the last portage there were 5 of us taking out together. As we put in Manuel Busto got a break and sprinted off to win, Ben Brown did brilliantly to come in second, Portugal came 3rd about 1 second ahead of me in 4th. Eventhough I tried my absolute best on the day, I was still disappointed to come 4th. I worked so hard to get into a position to win a medal, but unfortunately I was too tired at the end to have put up a fight in the end sprint.

All in all I had a great time in Portugal. I am very happy with my silver medal and now I look forward to a few weeks off to recover before next season. Thanks to everyone for their emails and sms’s of support over the last few days.