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Dominant Charlotte Henshaw storms into para canoe finals at Paris 2024

Dominant Charlotte Henshaw storms into para canoe finals at Paris 2024

By Megan Armitage in Paris

Charlotte Henshaw is keeping the celebrations under wraps until the real party starts following a dominant first day at Paris 2024.

The Nottingham athlete won both of her heats on the first morning of para canoe in the French capital, meaning she bypasses the semifinals and progresses straight through to the VL3 and KL2 finals.

Henshaw clocked a time of 58.33s in her va'a heat to pip China's Zhong Yongyuan to the line before returning to the water 45 minutes later and winning her kayak heat by over nine seconds.

Despite, her opening strength, Henshaw noted that the job has only just started as she looks to add another two gold medals to her tally at Paris.

“You can feel as confident as you like, but you get to a Paralympic Games and its all to play for and everybody wants a bite of the medal and everybody on their day is capable of it," said Henshaw, who is one of over 1,000 elite athletes on UK Sport’s National Lottery-funded World Class Programme, allowing them to train full time, have access to the world’s best coaches and benefit from pioneering medical support – which has been vital on their pathway to the Paris 2024 Games.

"In a sport like ours, it's about who can put down the best run on the day with how you’re feeling, what the conditions give you and comparing to what everyone else is bringing.

"I’ve loved racing here this morning, the crowd is amazing, the band has just been unbelievable.

"I kind of wanted to join the party, but I’ll wait until Sunday evening to do that."

Henshaw's KL2 time was the fastest performance by over a second and a half at Vaires-sur-Marne Stadium, with Hungary's Katalin Varga the closest challenger in a time of 52.52s to Henshaw's 51.00.

The biggest challenge will come from teammate Hope Gordon in the VL3, who set a time of 58.25s to win her heat and progress through to the final.

Henshaw and Gordon will go up against each other in the event's Paralympic debut in Paris and the Nottingham-native will take confidence in her back-to-back performances on the opening day of competition.

“It was always going to have been a difficult morning and we were preparing for that, backing up the kayak after the va’a in the space of 45 minutes," she said.

"We’ve been working on doing that in training and I'm just pleased to get a good run under my belt.

"It's good to put down a solid performance, one that I was pretty happy with. We'll look to build on it moving forward for a busy Saturday and Sunday.”

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