Ridge canoe club medals at nationals

One gold, one silver and three bronze collected by Ridge Canoe and Kayak Club.

Matthew Koehler and Justin Won compete in the K2 1,000m event.

Matthew Koehler and Justin Won compete in the K2 1,000m event.

Members of the Ridge Canoe and Kayak Club collected one gold, one silver and three bronze medals at the Canadian national sprint championships at Wascana Lake in Regina, Sask.

Brian Malfesi, Tessa Nagai, Julianna Won, Justin Won, Omar Said, Matthew Koehler and Kevin Priebe all competed in Regina, Aug. 19-24, and six of them reached the finals in individual and team events.

Priebe won gold in the open men’s V-1 200m event.

Juliana Won and Nagai took silver in the junior women’s K2 200m and bronze in the K2 1,000m finals.

Malfesi earned bronze in both the junior men’s K1 500m and K1 1,000m events.

Koehler reached the finals in K1 1,000m and with Justin Won in  K2 1,000m.

“I was nervous for my first race, but as the week continued on, I gained confidence and competed to the best of my ability,” said Koehler.

“Canoe/kayak has traditionally been one of Canada’s top performing summer sports at the Olympic level and it is excellent to see many high performance athletes coming from our club,” said Priebe.

Maple Ridge News