Crieff's Fiona Pennie returned to form with a fifth place finish in yesterday's K1 kayak final at the slalom World Cup in Augsburg, Germany, but it was another frustrating weekend for fellow Scot David Florence after the triple world champion and three-time Olympic silver medallist hit gates and failed to reach the C1 final.
Pennie missed out on a medal by only half a second but still left Bavaria with renewed confidence following two sparkling runs in yesterday's semi-final and final.
The 2013 European champion qualified comfortably from Friday's heats before posting the second-quickest time in the semis. That meant she was second-last to go in the final, and although she negotiated all 24 barriers safely in 109.73secs, she was frustratingly close to a spot on the podium. It was still a massive improvement on the European Championships earlier this month, when a rival's underweight boat cheated Pennie out of a place in the final.
"It was great to get that close on a difficult course and show what I'm capable of," she said. "There wasn't much to improve on from the semi, but the final was another pretty solid run. The other girls just went really well too. I'm already looking forward to next weekend (near Leipzig) to get another run under my belt before the World Championships (in September)."
Florence began the year by winning the Australian Open, but the European season has been less kind to him so far and he failed to do himself justice in Augsburg after finishing fifth in Prague last week.
His time of 107.32 would have easily made him one of the top ten qualifiers, but two clipped poles and four seconds of time penalties left him down in 17th place and out of the final.
"That was some of the best paddling I've done for a wee while, but you can't afford two mistakes. That's one too much," he admitted. "You've just got to take the positives and go on to the next race next week. It's a good venue and I've had good results there before."
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