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Exciting times are ahead in Para-canoe, with 19-year-old Paralympian Dylan Littlehales achieving a personal best (PB) yesterday (7 March) at the 2019 Canoe Sprint National Championships.

“I managed to get below the 40-seconds mark and managed to get a 39.70 [in the men’s kayak KL3], which is what I’ve been working towards for a long time now,” Littlehales said. “Now I just have to get down to 38 [seconds].”

Newcomer Mark Daniels also put in a PB, placing him onto the podium in third and with prospects for national team selection, to be announced next week.

“I got a three-seconds PB in the final today and came in at 48 seconds. My goal was to be at 50 seconds – I couldn’t ask for a better result,” Daniels said.

Paralympic champion and eight-time world champion Curt McGrath finished just behind Littlehales, winning the national title in the KL2 classification. McGrath also contested the men’s 500m kayak open, and won the men’s kayak 500m multi-class seeding race.

Paralympic medallists AJ Reynolds and Susan Seipel won the women’s kayak KL3 and KL2 events respectively.

“I’ve been so happy with my results this week, and it’s all the hard work we’ve done over winter, and it’s just come up really well,” Reynolds said.

“My coach Guy [Power] and I put in a lot of work of getting our technique right and getting headspace back on the water, and the boat is running beautifully, so I couldn’t be happier.”

View the results here, and the race schedule for the remaining events here.

By Paddle Australia
Posted: 08/03/2019