FROME Canoe Club paddler, Aimee Collins, has been selected to represent Great Britain in the Junior European Championships and the Junior World Championships later this year.
She will be part of the GB women’s single canoe class junior team and earned her place by competing over the 2012 Olympic white-water course at Lee Valley over the Easter weekend. Aimee, 18, who first started training with the club when she was 10 years old, will represent GB at the Junior European Championships in July in Bratislava, Slovakia, and Junior World Championships in Krakow, Poland, in August.
Aimee said, “Ever since I saw my sister paddling, I thought it looked a fun thing to do and as I got better, I started competing in canoe slalom. It is a great sport because it is both exhilarating and challenging. We race on a course of up to 25 gates which are set on white-water rapids; every time we compete it is a different course and the white-water challenges are always different.”
Club chairman and coach, Chris Wilde said, “We are all immensely proud of Aimee’s achievements; she is a great role model to the younger paddlers at the club. Aimee trains hard, she shows great commitment to her sport and when she is not training, she coaches the other paddlers. What is special is that at Frome we only have a flat-water river, so for Aimee to reach such a high standard in a white-water sport is a mark of the hard work she puts in and the success of Frome Canoe Club in coaching young paddlers. We will all be watching her racing very closely; everyone at Frome Canoe Club wishes her every success.”
Frome Canoe Club is based in Market Yard in the centre of Frome, next to the Cheese and Grain. They offer paddle sport activities including canoeing, kayaking and paddleboarding to anyone from eight years old upwards. To find out more, visit www.canoeslalom.co.uk , https://www.britishcanoeing.org.uk , http://www.frome-canoe-club.org.uk/myself or contact Chris Wild for more information via, chairperson.fcc@gmail.com
Anyone who would like to support Aimee in her competing can visit her GoFundMe page, https://gofund.me/b7299e6a
