KAYAKING Irish female kayakers miss out on Olympic qualifcation at European Championships

An Irish canoe-slalom team of five paddlers all qualified for the semi-finals at the European Championships in Krakow. Poland today (10 May 2008). In the semi-final two Olympic places were on offer and both Ireland’s Hannah Craig and Helen Barnes in the women’s kayak category attempted to win a place in Beijing.

To qualify they had to finish in the top two nations outside of the twelve nations already qualified for the Games. In qualification Craig and Barnes finished 19th and 38th respectively, but Craig was second of the nations that had not qualified for Beijing heading into the semi-final.

Two touches on the gates in that semi-final put the Belfast born paddler out of the reckoning and she finished in 30th position. Her time alone would have been just one second off the pace for making qualification; however it was not to be.

Helen Barnes, who is based in Nottingham, had a steady run untilthe final sequence of gates where she paddled with an aggressive and risky style and was judged not to have got her head inside gate 20. The 50 second penalty handed down for that infringement put her out of the race for Beijing qualification, and she finished in 39th.

Both women are still due to compete in the World Cup series and certainly Craig will be looking towards London 2012. Italy and Greece took the qualification spots in this class.

In the Men’s kayaks three Irish athletes qualified for Sunday's (11 May) semi-final action. In the qualification race, Neil Caffrey was just outside the top 10, with team-mate Ciaran Hearteau in 19th place in the field of 75 boats from 29 countries. Eoin Rheinisch who initially qualified the Irish place in Beijing, was in 29th place after qualfiying.

In the semi-final Neil Caffrey finished best of the Irish in 23rd place, Eoin Rheinisch followed him in 29th place with Ciaran Heurteau 36th.

Further information:
Tadhg MacIntyre, Team Leader, 087-8393630 tadhg@canoe.ie
or
Sinéad McElroy, Irish Sports Council, 087-6338512 smcelroy@irishsportscouncil.ie

Additional Information:

For competition information, race times and live results visit
www.123result.com

IMAGES: Feature pics of the paddlers are available at www.canoe.ie under the media banner.

Irish Women’s Kayak Team
Helen Barnes - 39th overall
Hannah Craig - 30th overall

Irish Men’s Kayak Team
Neil Caffrey - 23rd overall
Ciaran Heurtea - 36th overall
Eoin Rheinisch - 29th overall