A great day for Glanford and Scunthorpe!
Sunday saw one of best attended marathons for a long time with 42 paddlers taking to the water to compete in races ranging from 2 miles (for the juniors) to 8 miles for the better adult and youth paddlers. We put out a very strong team of 21 paddlers ranging from Declan (our youngest paddler) to Sue and Graham (our oldest) and ended the day winning lots of cups, medals and certificates.
Notable achievements :
Connor Maguire came home first in a field of 6 in Division 6 with a time just 12 seconds away from promotion to Div 5.
Charles Thew completed his first 8 mile race. After the Hasler Finals at Worcester last month he was promoted to Div 6 and then the promotion was withdrawn so he should have only been in Div 7. He chose to race in Div 6 – again he paddled fast enough to be promoted and this time the promotion has been ratified.
Louie Gardner-Smith beat John Sherwin (a visitor from Lancashire) to win Div 7.
Martin Heywood came second in Div 8 and was justifiably promoted to Div 7.
Matthew Hookham came to the event offering to help wherever he was needed. We persuaded him to race and, as he had never entered a marathon nor been in one of our club marathon boats before, we put him into a Pulsar (quite stable) in Division 9 to “give him a try”. He left the opposition for dead winning by almost 15 minutes and has now been promoted up TWO divisions to Div 7.
Graham and Sue raced double canoe in Div 8 and were only 22 seconds behind the Malton and Norton paddlers in Div 7 doubles.
Our junior paddlers in the Geoff Sanders (2 mile) races all put in a great performance. Oscar Niland and Matilda Thew only just missed promotion into Division 9. Watch out for these rising stars next year!
Dave West chose to race a much faster and less stable kayak than he is used to and, despite two (or was it three) capsizes before the race started, he completed the course – then did a celebratory intentional capsize after crossing the finish line!
Our team were awarded 593 points and easily took first place overall – a great start to the 2023/24 racing season.
Paddlers who visited from as far away as Bishop Stortford were full of compliments for the club and much of this is down to the excellent team of volunteers who timed, marshalled, catered and generally helped ensure that the event ran like clockwork.
Marathon training continues throughout the winter on Saturday afternoons at 2pm. The current paddlers will continue to hone their skills and we are always ready to welcome new paddlers to train along with us and join the team.
The next race in our region will again be in Brigg at the end of March.
Come and join the winning team!
Graham
Download the results here https://entries.gbcanoemarathon.co.uk/results/races/2023/tony-and-shirley-pell-memorial-marathon#race-div4
Photos
For photos of the Hasler racing click here
For photos of the Geoff Sanders racing click here
For photos of the prize presentation click here