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World Champions... -
July 2008
Congratulations to Aberfan's latest World
Champions Zoe Anthony, Luke Morris and GB Womens coach Elan Winter.
At the
Canoe Polo World Championships in Canada last week teams from around the
world battled it out over 5 days. At the end of the week GB Women and
U21's were both in the finals.
The
women faced arch enemies Germany. Scoring first GB were never behind
despite the Germans throwing everything they had at them and playing 5 out
for a large part of the second half. GB held them off to take the Gold
medal 4 - 3. Part of the gold medal winning team and winning her second
World Championship Gold with GB was Aberfan player Zoe Anthony.
Congratulations also go to Aberfan member Elan Winter who coached the
girls to their Gold medals.
The
U21's faced France, a team they had already played in the competition. The
previous game ended in a draw so things were set for a tight match. The
final whistle blew with the scorecard at 0 - 0 which pushed the game into
sudden death extra time - not good for the nerves in any competition let
alone the World Championship Final !! With so much at stake both teams
pushed hard but safe, not wanting to slip up and lose out at the final
hurdle. The first half of extra time ended without a score. GB continued
to push hard and earned a free shot when Aberfan's Luke Morris was pushed
onto another players boat as he drove into the zone. The ball was passed
out from the free shot then back in to Luke who had been left open in the
zone. A shot by Luke and the ball was in the back of net. The Golden gold
for the Gold medal !!
GB men
very narrowly missed out a semi-final spot having finished joint second in
their play-off pool with Australia. Both teams had the same points, same
goal difference and had drawn their game against each other. The
Australians went through having scored 1 more goal than GB. They then
faced Spain in the 5th - 6th place play-off. Maybe the disappointment of
missing the semi-final by such a narrow margin was too much for the guys
who lost their final game 4 - 0 giving them 6th place. Despite their
disappointment all their hard work was not in vain. By finishing 6th they
secured qualification for the World Games in
Kaohsiung,
Taiwan in 2009.
The action from all the finals can be seen
here :
http://www.youtube.com/profile_videos?user=2008CanoePoloWorlds
Aberfan Canoe Club were
also represented by 2 other players in the GB U21 squad. Alun Griffiths
and Anthony Morgan played and trained with GB U21 all season unfortunately
they narrowly missed selection for the final 7 places and did not travel
to Canada. The representation by Aberfan Canon Club in the GB squads shows
the hard work, time and effort being spent to develop the sport and young
people in the area. This development has only been possible thanks to the
support of Merthyr Tydfil CBC, Communities First, Welsh Canoeing
Association (WCA) and Sports Council for Wales who have all supported the
club with financial assistance and training facilities notably at Taff
Bargoed Lakes.
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