With less than a year to go Team GB started announcing athletes who will fight for the medals at the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo. As a part of the celebrations marking the 55th anniversary of the Opening Ceremony of the 1964 Tokyo Olympics canoeing team (sprint and slalom) has been officially introduced.
The biggest star of British canoeing team will undoubtedly be kayak sprinter Liam Heath who will compete at his third Olympic Games next year. He won sprint bronze medal in the K2 200m alongside Jon Schofield in 2012 and then silver in 2016 before being crowned Olympic champion in the K1 200m event in Rio de Janeiro. In 2017 he was the reigning Olympic, World and European Champion in men’s K1 200 metres and has been unbeatable since then. In 2020 he will fight to defend his Olympic champion title and cement his place in British history as the most successful canoe sprint athlete of all time. “Being selected to represent Team GB at the Olympics for a third time is such an honour and I feel incredibly lucky to compete once again, against the best of the best and hopefully make everyone proud,” said Heats, who is currently the only British athlete in canoe sprint with Olympic ticket.
The different story is in slalom part of the team where British athletes secured all available quotas for the 2020 Olympics. The 2016 Olympic Champion in men’s K1 Joe Clarke will be missing next year as Bradley Forbes-Cryans secured himself a spot in the Olympic team. Forbes-Cryans is a World Cup silver medallist and won silver at the U23 World Championships last year.
Adam Burgess will compete in men’s canoe event. The 2018 European Championships medallist beat multiple Olympic medallist David Florence and last year’s European Champion Ryan Westley for the spot in the Olympic team.
Kimberley Woods, 2017 European Champion in women’s C1, will compete in K1 women’s event in Japan to finally realise her Olympic dream, having had her first insight as a member of the Team GB Ambition Programme at Rio 2016.
In the first ever women’s C1 Olympic race this year’s European Champion Mallory Franklin will take on a challenge to win the only medal still missing in her collection. In 2012 she followed the Olympic Games as a spectator and now she will be one of the main favourites for the medal. “It is amazing to be going to my first Games, although it hasn't fully sunk in yet, but I am sure it will and I will get really excited. I am really looking forward to heading out to Japan soon and getting used to the culture and the course,” she said.
Source: https://www.britishcanoeing.org.uk/news/2019/team-gb-announces-canoeing-athletes-selected-for-the-tokyo-2020-olympic-games
Photo: Sam Mellish
5.11.2019
