Last week saw an Irish team of four Junior Sprint Athletes compete at the Olympic Hopes regatta in Bratislava, Slovakia. The Olympic Hopes is the premier international regatta for Athletes in the U17 , U16 & U15 categories and this year had almost 800 athletes from more than 40 countries taking part.
Team Ireland consisted of Sean Noud & Jake Witek in the U17 Boys, Emily Donnellan in U16 Girls & Caoilin Caffrey in the U15 Girls. Over the course of the week all Irish athletes competed in the 500m, 1000m & 5000m K1 races among an extremely high standard field. There were plenty of personal bests and valuable experience gained over the four days of racing with a few standout performances along the way.
Sean Noud qualified for the 1000M B-Final, finishing 7th and after a gutsy in the 5000m, came home 11th in a field of nearly 50. Jake Witek finished a solid 26th in the 5000m in his first International Sprint regatta.
On the Girls side Emily Donnellan broke into the top half of the field, finishing 16th of 38 in the 5000m in the U16. While in the U15 Caoilin Caffrey finished an incredible 4th place in the 5000m, battling her way back to the front of the race after a setback early in the race dropped her to near the back of the 33 paddler field. This capped off an already very successful regatta for Caoilin who also had a 5th place finish in the 1000m A-Final and 7th place in the 500m A-Final. Caoilin’s results gave her an overall u15 athlete’s placing of 3rd on the leaders table.
The future of sprint paddle is bright with all of these athletes still Juniors in 2027.
