Pennie paddles her way to place in slalom finals

Crieff canoeist Fiona Pennie qualified for tomorrow’s K1 semi-finals with the minimum of fuss at the slalom World Cup in Augsburg, Germany.

The 2013 European kayak gold medallist missing out on the European Championship final by just one place earlier this month.

Revitalised after three weeks of extra training, she qualified with more than two seconds to spare after finishing 16th in the K1 heats yesterday.

Her time of 106.89sec was seventh-quickest.

However, a two-second penalty for clipping a gate put her out of the top 10.

“The paddler before me gave gate two a big wallop and the pole was still swinging, so I had to take a slightly different line there,” she said.

“I then hit gate 11 and lost a bit of time, so it was damagelimitation paddling from there on in.”