Hartley grabs bronze in Russia
Olympic paddler battles hard for bronze medal at the ICF world sprint champs.
SOUTH African paddlers lit up the canoeing headlines in Europe with sprint hero Bridgitte Hartley repeating her London Olympics bronze medal effort at the World Championships in Moscow, and South Africans river racers grabbing two podium places at the legendary Sella Descent in Spain.
Hartley came into the Sprint World Champs in Moscow having had a disrupted season, but showed her class and tactical acumen by racing well into the women’s 500m A final, and then using her trademark surge through the final 250 metres to clinch the bronze medal behind Hungarian ace Danuta Kozak and New Zealander Lisa Carrington.
“It felt like I was getting a temperature when I was warming up ,” said Hartley. “I told myself that it didn’t matter if I got sick, I just had to push through to my last final. It probably helped that I wasn’t putting pressure on myself to get a medal actually.”
“I was just trying to have a race that didn’t have any flaws,” she added. “I just wanted to concentrate on making every stroke count, counting every stroke and making sure each one was powerful.
“Going into the last twenty strokes I felt that I was in the mix and I just concentrated on taking it all the way to the line. When I crossed the line I thought Germany had got the third, and even when I was called to boat weigh-in I wasn’t sure. The I was told that I had to be ready for the medal ceremony in ten minutes. That’s when I knew!” she said.
Later in the day Hartley added a solid seventh in the women’s 200m K1 final to her credit, wrapping up an excellent weekend for the South African team.
