Florence Maheu eliminated in semis

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Women’s kayak semifinals and finals competition were held today at the Kasai Canoe Slalom Centre. Canada’s Florence Maheu (Salaberry-de-Valleyfield, QC) was the seventh paddler to maneuver the challenging Tokyo course in the semifinals.

The semifinal proved to challenge many of the racers with only 9 women realizing penalty free runs. Florence made some costly mistakes on the course that caused her to finish outside of the top 10 advancement cut-off for finals.

“I am pretty disappointed. I wasn’t able to do what I wanted to do with too many mistakes. Following my heats, I had a goal to make top 15. I wanted to execute all the moves and have a clean run and I wasn’t able to achieve that today.”

Reflecting on her semifinal run, Maheu added, “I was pretty nervous and they were not easy moves so I need to feel more confident in the future and be more consistent.”

Germany’s Ricarda Funk (GER) captured the gold medal, silver for Spain’s Maialen(ESP), and bronze for Australia’s Jessica Fox(AUS).

Maheu will make the trip home back to Canada tomorrow following a long six-month European training and competition block in Europe. “I am quite excited to get back to Canada as it has been a long time away from home.”

Canada will compete next in the women’s canoe (Haley Daniels) and men’s kayak (Michael Tayler) slalom heats tomorrow July 28 JST time.