World Championship glory for Melksham canoeist!

MELKSHAM’S Alex Edwards won the silver medal at the 2022 Canoe Freestyle World Championships in the men’s kayak squirt final. 

Alex, who trains on the River Avon in Melksham, won the silver in front of a home crowd in Nottingham. It is Alex’s third consecutive silver medal at the World Championships, to go with two European Championship titles and two World Cup titles. 

His coach Dee Paterson reports, “Freestyle kayaking is akin to gymnastics in a kayak with athletes having one minute to demonstrate a series of complex moves, with each scoring points. The more difficult the trick the higher the points. 

“The heats took place on Monday 27th June, with each competitor having two one-minute runs, with the scores added together to decide which 10 athletes would make it through. Alex put together two high scoring runs to go through in first place. 

“There was little time to relax with the semi-finals on Tuesday 28th June, this time with each paddler having two runs with the best single score counting. Going in to his first run Alex knew what was needed to see him through and he delivered another high score to progress to the final. 

“The final is a best of three rounds affair with Alex up against his fellow British athletes Sam and Jamie, along with a pair of Americans including the two-time defending champion Clay Wright. 

“The final was one of the most exciting competitions for some time with all five paddlers in contention for the victory. After the first round Alex was sitting in first place with over 1,200 points, but with less than 200 points separating the field it was still all to play for. There were small improvements in the second round which left Alex in 1st in an all-British 1,2,3.  

“In the final round, first to go was Sam who produced his highest score of the day to leap to the top of the leaderboard. But within minutes Clay produced his highest score over 1,480 points to jump into the lead with just two paddlers remaining. Next up was Taft from the USA, sitting in 5th he produced his highest score of the completion to put himself into 2nd place. 

“All of this meant that as Alex prepared for his final run, the last of the competition he was down in 4th place, meaning he had to improve his score to have any chance of a medal. 

“His first move didn’t go as planned, but Alex remaining composed throughout and with a flurry of quick moves gave the judges plenty to think about. After an agonizing wait his final score was announced as 1,444 points. This was enough to move him up to second place and the Silver medal, less than 40 points off Gold.”