While the paddlers suffered through muddy feet, shins, knees, and bums, the rest of us enjoyed a beautifully sunny day out at Waterside C. High flow, smart tactics, and talented racers gave us back-to-back records following on from the K2 Ladies record set by Fay Lamph and Greta Roeser at Waterside B (they didn’t race C, otherwise we’d probably be talking about another women’s record). James Russell from Chelmsford Canoe Club finished in a blistering 2:46:31, winning the race overall ahead of the K2s. Russell has snatched the record from Keith Moule’s 2017 time of 02:47:49.

James set off with Joe Petersen and Tim Gannicott-Porter who said their goal for the race was “try not to get dropped by James”. Until the last three seconds, they succeeded. The strategy of a fast K2 wash hanging with an even-faster K1 worked exceptionally well. At Hungerford bridge, Joe and Tim were in the lead, but the K2 and K1 probably traded positions more than a few times over 23 miles. Both boats had to queue at Newbury Lock where marshalls curtailed traffic to one boat at a time for safety reasons. James hopped in his K1 just a bit quicker than Joe and Tim, and sped off through the bridge to take the win by three seconds.

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The big news of the day for DW fans was the impressive success of Andrew Birkett and Tom Simmons in their first race together. Tom was planning to race DW with Mike Lambert until a shoulder injury took Lambert out of the running. He is still planning to circumnavigate the UK in June, so Mike has taken a wise decision to not risk exacerbating his injury beforehand.

Tom and Andrew got into the boat together for the first time the day before Waterside C – a risky move even for experienced paddlers. But these two made it work. As Andy said before the race, “getting the boat running nicely will be key”, and run nicely it did. Smiling after the race, Tom confirmed: “We got some good rhythm going.” With such a good first race and only their second time in the boat together, the DW decision seemed to feel easy: “First race in the bag, I think there could be a few more in the future. [DW] is the plan”. After Sunday’s success, it’s clear that this crew will absolutely be challenging for the win at DW.

The other two crews who are leading contenders for a DW win had a harder race on Sunday, perhaps in part because of how much hard training they’re doing for DW. These crews are racking up as much mileage as possible right now including on the fast-flowing Thames at Richmond for Anoushka and Tom, and won’t start to taper for at least another couple of weeks. As Billy and Jon pointed out in their post-race interview, the most important thing for them right now is to stay healthy and injury-free so they are in peak form for DW. For Waterside D, several of these crews will likely link up to wash hang together – this way, they’ll get a good race in without destroying themselves two weeks before DW. Tactical wash hanging could still bring us some excitement at Waterside D even if these crews aren’t going all-out: it’s notable that the fastest two crews at C started together and practiced wash hanging the whole way.

Overall Position	Crew	Club	Category	Time
1	James Russell	Chelmsford	K1 Senior	2:46:31
2	Joe Petersen / Tim Gannicott-Porter	Banbury & District / Chelmsford	K2 Senior	2:46:34
3	Tom Simmons / Andrew Birkett	Bradford on Avon / Richmond	K2 Senior	2:52:30
4	Billy Butler / Jon O’Grady	Falcon (Oxford) / Runcorn	K2 Senior	2:53:22
5	Anoushka Freeman / Tom Sharpe	Richmond	K2 Mixed	3:00:54

Aside from the excitement of watching the fast boats fight it out, high water conditions at Newbury Lock caused heart palpitations amongst racers, spectators, and organisers alike. River Levels UK shows that the current water level at Newbury is at its highest point since 2014.

To their credit, the race organisers managed to strike a balance between racer safety and race integrity at Newbury Lock. The platform was flooded and the water was running extremely fast, so they only let one boat through at a time. But to address the large queue of racers that piled up waiting to put in, the organisers quickly mobilised extra marshalls to give a time allowance for the wait.

On the canoeing side, we saw yet another flip-flop between the top two C2 crews of Mike and Shirine versus Sam and Steve who have now gone 2/1, 1/2, 2/1 respectively in placing at Watersides A, B, and C. Mike and Shirine were feeling good about C before they set off and portaging is one of their strenghts, but Sam and Steve outraced them on Sunday. Can Mike and Shirine make a strong comeback at Waterside D, or will Sam and Steve take the series? We’ll be watching closely…

If you enjoyed this recap of Waterside C, check out our recap of B here.