The Irish C1 Men Team today took a silver medal in the team race, behind the Slovenian Team the newly crowned European Champions. The 3 man team of Liam Jegou, Jake Cochrane and Robert Hendrick put together a very solid run to take Irelands first team medal in a long time, doing so on what was a very difficult course.
Having been the second team off in the race the 3 Irish athletes had a nervous wait, watching teams including World, European and Olympic Champions fall victim to the difficulty of the course in Prague, and only being beaten to the gold by a strong Slovenian team featuring the newly crowned individual European Champion, Benjamin Savsek.
This fantastic result came off the back of further strong performances from Jake Cochrane and Liam Jegou, Irelands Olympian for the Tokyo Games, who finished 12th and 15th respectively in the individual C1M race earlier in the day. The third boat in the team Robert Hendrick had a disappointing race but was no doubt buoyed up by the teams medal success.
Elsewhere in the competition the Irish K1M had great performances, with Noel Hendrick finishing 21 st in the semi final, and Eoin Teague finishing in 36 th.
This silver medal performance comes during whatis a resurgence in the sport of canoe slalom in Ireland, with medals again being won and athletes qualifying for the upcoming Olympic Games after a brief drought.
