Slalom and Polo News!

Caitlin Marley (Age 12, pictured above) has gained promotion to K1W division 2 (K1W stands for: Kayak-one person-Women) of the UK national slalom league after winning her last race of the season at Stone last weekend. To get promotion, you have to gain 4150 points over 5 qualifying races or win three races, and Caitlin finished with 4426 points, finishing 13th out of 110 paddlers in division 3. And Division 3 includes all age groups, including Seniors and Masters! In her age class (J12) which includes all divisions, Caitlin is ranked 15th.

At the Stone slalom last weekend, in the first run on Saturday Caitlin finished second with 947 points, which wasn’t quite enough to gain promotion, so the pressure was on for the last runs of the season the following day, but Caitlin went one better to win overall for 1000 points.
For Saturday’s results click here
and for Sunday’s results click here

Caitlin is not our only slalom paddler who has tasted promotion this season. Frazer Doyle was promoted to Division 3 at a slalom event at Tanfield in September and Koren Doyle, Owen Kelly and Sam Kelly were promoted to Division 3 at Howsham Weir in July. And lets not forget Ellie Beedham, in J10, winning her event at Howsham, but not competing in enough qualifying events to gain promotion. Finally our slalom rep, Neil Marley, competed in division 2 this season and will be ranked 39 next season. So well done to all our slalom paddlers!

If you are interested in competing in Slalom visit the Canoe Slalom UK website by clicking here, and why not go to one of the winter training sessions listed below? If you have been to Tanfield (River Ure, Sleningford Mill) with us than you are eligible to go to any of these:

It is the Canoe Polo season again and this year we have one team, G&S Anchovies, entered in division three of the Yorkshire league. There are several tournaments through the winter, held at Yearsley pool in York. At each tournament there are 5 or 6 teams who play each other throughout the evening

A squad is eight paddlers and a team consists of five paddlers on the pitch, with up to three substitutes. Our team at the most recent tournament is pictured above, and is (from left to right): James Wilson, Matt Millington, Mikey Thornber, Dan Walker (our Disciplines Rep) and Aaron Wright. Not pictures are Tom Kerr (captain), Lui Wright and Owen Kelly.

Our team have played two tournaments so far, winning two and losing three in the first, and winning two and losing two in the second, so a good start considering the team has two new players (Matt and Mikey) and Mikey is making his polo league debut this season. The other players are a mixture of players from the two teams we had last season.

There are teams from Sheffield and Leeds universities, and Hull, Leeds, Pennine, Wharf and Manvers clubs. As there are too many teams in the league for them all to play in one night, not every team plays at every tournament. At the end of the year, every team will have played each other and as with most leagues, the team with the most points wins and gains promotion.

The next tournament the Anchovies are playing in is 9th January 2016 at 5:00pm in York and you are welcome to go along and watch and support our team.

If you are interested in playing polo, contact our disciplines rep, Dan Walker, for more information, and want to find out more about Canoe Polo, click here.