Sum-up of GB results in the Olympics Slalom:
Fantastic result in the C1, David Florence got silver, amazingly controlled in his stripey tiger boat, super to watch, great!
Campbell Walsh got through the preliminary round of the K1 with his runs, one mistake with a 2 second penalty, but otherwise solid stuff finishing mid way, and qualifying for the semis. He then had a tough time in the semi final runs, finishing 15th, so not making the finals.
Fiona Pennie, in the K1, had two hiccups on the first run - initially missed a gate and had to return, and then later was given a 50 penalty for perhaps missing another gate, a very close decision as to whether her head did go through that gate or not, and an unlucky call. That left her in a far-down position, something she managed to remedy with slick and clean second run, but it was not enough, and her combined score left her in 17th place, while only the first 15 go through to the semis.
This year's commentary on the BBC was a mixed bag - certainly infinitely better than at Athens, where that pretty irish boy from the travel shows did the talking. He has a lovely reading voice, but he's not even a sports commentator, had never seen a kayak before, and was painful to listen to him talking about “oars” and wondering if they were “in bad trouble” if they went backwards. This time the excellent Helen Reeves was commentating - she is a former K1 medallist herself, and could give a lot of insight into what was happening, and pointing out when paddlers were successfully using techniques to shave milliseconds off their time, or assessing the risks of taking a tighter line. Her co-commentator was clearly not a paddler, and tended to talk a lot of utter rubbish, but still better than last time. He was clearly just reading stuff from a stats handout, mostly this was not too irritating, but sometimes it got a bit much. Helen Reeves was very gentle with him - at one point she mentioned that the (American) paddler would be comfortable on big water runs because he would be used to that kind of water back home. Commentater Garry countered that he “wouldn't have much big water where he was from: Washington DC!” clearly not knowing much about the Potomac, or that Washington DC is a perfect centre for basing yourself for big white water. Helen Reeves, being very nice, did not put him down despite this and many other attempts by him to sound like he knew better than her, when he clearly didn't.
Later, he interviewed David Florence just as he learned his silver ranking, and again as Florence met up with his family. This was very telling - again, the family and Florence knew what they were talking about and were very natural, while the commentator was a bit of a pain.
More than anything, watching the slalom really underlines what a performance-on-the-day sport it is - Florence knew beforehand that he is in the very small handful of top C1 athletes in the world, but its still another matter to pull it out of the hat on the day, and takes a cool head and perfect execution.
Great to see kayaking on the telly, and great to see David Florence gain silver, what an achievement.
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