Sunday Slalom
Three days of paddling opportunities over the Bank Holiday weekend, enabled Shark (and other) paddlers to bask in the sunny delights of Shepperton.
Thank You
To Shepperton Slalom Canoe Club, for lending us their great facilities, for supporting The Sharks to host events and for their fantastic contribution to Slalom Canoeing.
To Nauticalia for allowing us access to their carpark.
The Staff and Officials who ran the event, to coaches across the Country who support paddlers and our sport. The Slalom Committee for the work they do in the background that keeps our sport going. To parents for supporting the paddlers (and sometimes racing) and to the competitors, without whom there is no sport.
To the Slalom Starts Programme which was run in the build up to this event.
Saturday
A whole day of practice and training, a rare opportunity to use local water and for our paddlers to have a whole day of practice, with our expert coaches. It was great to see people new to slalom, coming along to find out what it was about and having the opportunity to try paddling on the gates and the course before entering.
Slalom Sunday
Division 4 K1 Men
First two places went to Lee Valley Paddlers; Liubomyr Shvets (J16) and Jacob Brown (J10).
The first Shark Paddler was Ian Marsh, who came in third place.
In 4th place was Junior 14, Mohammed Bouhassane, his second appearance in canoe slalom and his is fast moving up the results. Mohammed started paddling with us through our after school club at Harlesden Primary School.
He was followed by the first of the Syed brothers, Saalih Said (J14).
In 6th and 7th place were another two Lee Valley Paddlers, Freddie Nash and Dayyan Butt.
Then came Abdurrahman Syed, a Junior 12 from The Sharks
Shepperton’s George Boyle (J12) was 9th, followed by three more Shark paddlers.
J10 Abdullah Syed
And racing for the first time ever J12 Harley Rai, who is from our partnership with Three Bridges School in Southall.
Women’s Division 4 K1
First was Shepperton’s J10, Isabelle Boyle, who would have won the Division 3 event, and in second place was another J10, this time from Meridian, Vera Kontchakov, she would have come second in Division 3, by just one second! Brilliant performances.
Division 4 C1 Women
Rebecca Brown from Lee Valley was the winner, with a time that would have won Division 3. Well done.
Division 3 K1 Men
Anand Jones (J16) from Lee Valley Paddle Club, was the winner, followed by Protues Canoe Club‘s Tom West-Robinson (M) and Third was Gregory Grant (J14) of Salisbury Canoe Club.
First J12 was Finn Darby-Dowman of Shepperton, Richard Aplin (M) from Poole Harbour Canoe Club was fifth.
Sam Press (J18) of The Sharks was racing slalom for the first time and came sixth, great start Sam.
Division 3 Women’s k1
First place was Lee Valley’s Julia Farrell (J12), followed by Master, Susan Templeton of The Itchen Valley Sharks.
C1 Division 3 Men
The Winner was Lucas Willmott from Shepperton and the runner up, Gregory Grant from Salisbury. Both J14 paddlers.
Division 3 C1 Women
This year’s champion was Ellie Grant from Salisbury
K1 Veteran men
The Independent Andrew Lyall came in just a head of Shepperton’s Antony Cowderoy.
K1 Veteran Ladies
Was won by Salisbury‘s Ellie Grant
Canoe Doubles
As part of our weekend of activities we held our first Intergenerational C2 challenge, the full results can be see here. The results are included in teh main results which are listed below, we had 11 crews taking part which was great, but we are hoping for a lot more next time.
The Winners were a a combined crew of Mohammed Bouhassane from The Sharks and Jake Brown from Lee Valley, well done guys.
Runners up were Grant Underwood and Neal Underwood, with a clear run. They also collect 167 ranking points and are currently sitting fourth in the national rankings.
In third place was the all Shark team of Ivijah Campbell-Bryan and Mohammed Bouhassane, and the first J16 team.
The Crew of Ellie and Gregory Grant from Salisbury came were the highest ranked mixed crew.
A crew from Lee Valley of Rebecca Brown and Julia Farrow were the top women’s partnership, also with a clear run, another Lee Valley crew of Rebecca Brown and Jacob Brown came 6th over all and second Mixed crew. Both crews were J14.
Shepperton’s Luca Wilmott and Finn Darby-Dowman, were third J14.
Grant Underwood and Orla Kirk, took 8th place.
Ian Marsh and Andrew Lyall were 9th, followed by Grant Underwood and Conor Kirk.
Max Arbuzov and Sam Press were twelfth.
Officials’ Race
At each event there is an officials’ race, this is an excellent opportunity to get experience of competition, when it is not your division. Officials are crucial to the sport and the event, without them we do not have competitions. Officials’ events are free to enter.
Semier Ahmed won the event, with Ivijah Campbell-Bryan taking second spot. Shepperton’s Luca Wilmott was third and Meridian’s Malcolm Blowers was 4th.
Thank you for your help and support during the event.
Team Event
Team events are a fun way to get practice, to make you think and use tactics. The objective is to get three boats round the course as quickly as possible, with the added complication of passing through a Team Gate and the finish line within 15 seconds of each other.
Next event we will have a greater focus on a Team event …
The Sharks are proud to be affiliated to Paddle UK
Published 4th June 2026