McFarlane clinches two bronze in Thailand
A DRAGON Boat paddler from Mountsorrel has won two bronze medals at the world championships in Thailand.
Campbell McFarlane from Mountsorrel was part of the GB U18 world championship team which won bronze in 2,000m on day one in Pattaya and the 500m race on day three.
McFarlane, a member of the Soaring Dragons dragon boat club in Loughborough narrowly missed out on a bronze hat-trick as part of the crew in the 200m sprint.
On a tough hot day with temperatures reaching 36 degrees they still managed to race hard and finished in 4th place in the 200m, missing out on a medal by three hundredths of a second.
Soaring Dragon team mate Steve Pearson from Wymeswold raced in the GB Grands team in the 50+ division and just missed out on medalling.
In an extremely tough category but the team paddled hard all week they placed 4th and 5th throughout the week and fought every inch of the way at one point they where two paddlers down due to illness.
Campbell’s mum Suzie Holloway who was in Thailand to watch the championships said: “It was an amazing World Championships. The calibre of paddling was something we had ever seen. World records were being broken left right and centre.
“A lot of the big teams China, USA and Canada actually get fully funded and even get paid to race and win so the achievements from GB are even more special.
“Team GB showed the world that we can paddle and are looking forward to the European Championships next year in the Ukraine.”