Making a splash Canoeist Megan has a successful season

SEPTEMBER and October saw the end of the Canoe Slalom season with Welsh and British honours up for grabs.

Se v e nt e e n- y e a r- ol d Megan Hamer-Evans, from Ton Pentre, competed first in the British Open Championships at London Olympics Lee Valley course.

Known as the most challenging white water course in the world, a tough field of the top British athletes and international invites battled for the honours.

Megan qualified from the first heat straight through the semi finals. Then a fast and clean run in the semi-finals against 40 other paddlers put Megan into the final in fifth place, where the top 10 semi-finalists were to battle it out for honours.

Rio Olympian Fiona Pennie took the overall first place and the senior British open title and Megan became the British Open Junior Champion and was sixth place overall.

Next for Megan was the Welsh Championships on the Graveyard section of the river Tryweryn near Bala.

Megan’s consistency was again excellent proceeding straight through the heats and semi-final.

In the final Megan put down a run of strength, power and clean lines for one of her best runs of the season.

The result gave her a clean sweep of Welsh titles – becoming the Junior, Under 23 and Senior Welsh Champion.

Lastly on October 15 it was the Premier Division finale held in Teesside, where the 10th race in the canoe slalom calendar was held.

At the end of a long season, an untidy run ended with Megan finishing the race ninth overall.

However her points accumulated in the Premier Division through the season allowed Megan to finish the season as the top ranked Junior paddler in Britain.

She also finished the season ranked ninth overall in Britain.