After paddling their way to gold at the Pan American games in Mexico, two Innisfail brothers hit rougher waters in the land down under.
Daniel and Thomas Purcell competed in two races in Australian in February where they were up against the top canoe slalom racers in the world. They have spent the last few months training and competing with the Canadian National Slalom team and although some of their results were not as good as they hoped they have not lost sight of their Olympic goal.
Their first Australian competition was the Penrith Open, where the boys came out of the race in fifth place.
“We had a great race being able to compete with some of the world’s best, Olympians and world champions,” said Daniel and Thomas in an e-mail from Australia.
The second competition was the world ranking Australian Open, which took place from Feb. 18-20. The boys made it through to the semifinals but didn’t quite place well enough to move on from there.
“We were a little disappointed but we are very pleased with how the start of the season has gone thus far,” they said.
“We just have to keep building up to the World Championships in Bratislava in September which is the first Olympic qualifying event.”
Daniel and Thomas finished the Open in 20th place, completing their best run in just over 127 seconds.
While in Australia the team has had a few days off with a chance to do a little sightseeing but the boys didn’t go far from the water and spent their days off surfing.
After returning to Canada the boys will be spending the next few months continuing to train and looking for sponsorships to help raise enough money to get them to the Olympics.
Daniel and Thomas are Innisfail natives and got their start paddling with the Cottonwood Kayak Club. They race in the C2, or the canoe double category.
