Home internationals and British Open

Last week, over mid term, I was up at the surf kayaking Home Internationals and British Open in Portrush, Northern Ireland. The Home Internationals is a competition between the Irish, English, Scottish and Northern Irish National teams. I was competing in seniors for the first time in this, the step up in the competition was an unpleasent surprise to say the least! I paddled well enough though, and came 3rd in all four of my heats so I guess it could have gone a lot worse. The competition came right down to the wire for everyone. We came 3rd overall, just beating Scotland by two points after me and Mike Barry came in ahead of the Scottish paddlers in our last two heats. The battle for 1st and 2nd between Northern Iremand and England was even closer, with England taking the win by a single point in the end.

The British Open was an individual competition, held the weekend after the Homes. I was competing in the Juniors this time and the standard was really high, with Adam Harvey, junior hp world champion, Corin King, junior ic world champion and Andy McClelland, 2nd in the worlds in ic all entered. My first round ic heat was a disaster, the less said about it the better, but the hp went really well. I came 2nd in my first round heat which got me into the semi finals, and got some really good waves in my semi and won that. The final didnt go so well and I came 4th, but im still happy enough with the result. The positions in the final were Andy in 1st, Jake King in 2nd and Adam Harvey in 3rd. The full results are up on misurfkayak.com.
And a huge thanks to Munster Dive and Canoe for giving us a loan of their van for the weekend, it was great to have somewhere like that to defrost after each heat! Their website is at www.mdac.ie

A few pics Brendan too over the week:

Mick going up to hit the lip

The team out on the beach supporting;

Conor going up for a big end move:

Me slashing a turn in the IC: