WS 2017-18 Race 6: Leaside & Series Results

The 2017-18 Winter Series drew to an early close at the end of January, with the finals as usual hosted by Leaside CC.  Councillor Soraya Adajare came along in her ceremonial robes as Speaker of Hackney to add dignity to the occasion by presiding over the race starts as well as presenting the awards.

There were 123 paddlers taking part and in particular there was another big turnout in the K2 race (22 boats), with good numbers of mixed and all-female crews.

There were some close finishes, notably just a 5 second gap between Leaside's Finn O'Brien Chelmsford rival Oscar Griffiths in the Mens u18 K1 race. Barking CC came second overall to Chelmsford CC at this event, with host club Leaside CC just one point behind them.  The full results of the day's racing are on the Winter Series Results page.

The prize-giving for the race was followed with the presentation of the series awards.

This year's trophy winners were:
Sen K2 -Leah Falltrick & Matt Johnson (CLM)
Mixed K2 - Amanda Clark & Tracey Avery (CLM)
Sen M K1 - Keith Moule (CLM)
Vet M K1 - Danny Beazley (BSF)
u18 M K1 - Alex McIntyre (CLM)
u16 M K1 - Jonathan Pirmuhamedov (CLM)
Sen F K1 - Leanne Brown (BAD)
Vet F K1 - Octavia Abbott (BSF)
u18 F K1 - Emma Russell (CLM)
u16 K1 - Yun Ip (EAL)
u14 M K1  - Leo Villaruel (EAL)
u14 F K1 - Katy Dixon (LBZ)
u12 M K1  - Gruff Thomas (EAL)
u12 F K1 - Sienna Payne (CLM)
MC2 - Anna Maria Fischer & Stefanie Mullins (CAM)
Novice C1 - David Shipway (LBZ)
M GP - Ron Dains (BAD)
F GP - Deborah Wilkes (CLM)
See also the full class & club results for the 2017-18 Winter Series.

The team from Ealing CC, who have become regular attendees at Winter Series did particularly well, winning three of the series trophies.

​Chelmsford CC were the overall series club winners, and also took the Bob Porter Trophy for the most participation by under 12s across the series. The Dick Grieve Trophy, based on points scored by novice juniors, went this year to Herts Young Mariners COPS. 

Approximately 279 different paddlers have taken part in this year's series (after allowing for changes of class or crew). Although quite a few people made it to every race of the series, nobody has achieved a full set of 6 gold medals - Gruff from Ealing CC came the closest with 5 golds and a silver! 

Fifteen clubs have been represented, plus a number of independent paddlers.

One notable feature of this series was the increasing number of C1s participating, particularly on the middle distance course - it was a shame that none of these attended quite enough races to be eligible for the Advanced C1 trophy, so the shield has had to go back into store for another year.  C2 entries are fewer than they once were, but the standard is still high and it was great to see an all-female crew taking home the Marathon C2 trophy for (as far as I can tell) the first time in its history.

While the senior K2 races have seen large numbers across the series, entries in the Junior K2 event have been sparse - a missed opportunity for somebody there!

Because the Winter Series has been running for so long, many of the trophies are little pieces of history in themselves, with familiar names gradually progressing from trophy to trophy: you can check out the full list of past Winter Series class trophy winners on the Results page.

Many thanks are due to all the hard working ​volunteers from the six clubs who staged the races. Thanks also to everyone who came and paddled. All the profits from the series go to the constituent FRA clubs to support racing at the grass roots. 

The Summer Sprint Series will be kicking off in March at Chelmsford - details to be announced shortly. For more details of that, or to be kept informed of schedule for next season's Winter Series, please watch for announcements on the FRA website or sign up to the FRA mailing list.