Club's kayak stars aim for Olympic stardom

But paddles, boats and lycra could be a more common image with the growing number of champion kayakers at East Oxford’s Falcon Rowing and Canoeing Club.

The 144-year-old club has seen a 15 per cent surge in membership over the past year, a figure club president Peter Travis attributes to last year’s Olympic Games when Ed McKeever won gold for Great Britain.

“This is the biggest interest we’ve ever had,” he said.

“We have over 200 members in the club now, with long waiting lists and a huge number of classes on offer.”

Among the promising kayakers is Cheney School pupil Annie Rose, 15, who was awarded Oxfordshire Young Sportsperson of the Year on July 12.

She said: “I had been nominated by my school and I was surprised to win.

“I really like kayaking because it keeps me fit and it’s quite a different sport.”

Following two marathon assessment days in 2012 and last February, Annie, along with Emma Hield, Maddi Barnicoat and Sam Glover, were selected to represent the GB Development Team at the Belgium Ghent Marathon on March 23.

Annie also won silver in the under 16 girls’ K4 500 metre sprint at the National Sprint Kayak Championships in April and finished second in the girls’ under 16 C K2 500 metre sprint at the May Sprint Racing Regatta.

Club members Sam Glover and Kieran Husband have also recently been selected by GB Canoeing for the Southern Super Regional Squad from The England Talent Programme, that aims to identify athletes for senior international success.

Mr Travis also emphasised how far the club has come since it began as a pleasure rowing club with 20 members in 1869.

He said: “It was founded for college servants at the University of Oxford and the sons and daughters of college boatsmen.

“They would rent the boats from the university and it was also the first club in the UK to admit females.

“Now we have over 100 adults and 70 children representing the club. It’s fantastic.”

But with the boom in interest comes a strain on resources.

“Our current boathouse was installed 40 years ago and was already 40 years old when we bought it”, Mr Travis said.

“The problem is that it’s just far too small for the number of people using it.

“It’s not heated and it doesn’t have proper access for wheelchairs.”

The club needs £600,000 to build a new boathouse and has made £50,000 so far from fundraising events and donations from Doris Field Trust, The Waterways Trust and Mr and Mrs J A Pye’s Charitable Settlement.

Oxford City Council also gave the club a £20,000 grant towards planning permission costs approved in 2009.

Mr Travis said there is no time limit on the funding but added that the longer it takes, the longer new members will have to wait to join.

“We want Oxford to become a national centre for kayakying just as it is for rowing.”

I went on the river one week into my new job

I must say, writes Charlotte Krol, I didn’t imagine myself clambering into a kayak a week into my new job at the Oxford Mail, and it certainly proved a challenge.

Kayak captain Nick Barnett slipped effortlessly into his kayak and told me with a grin that as long as I “centred myself” in the seat, no fall-ins would happen.

This instruction stayed with me from the minute I was first bobbing on the water, to the moment I dragged my exhausted self on to the river bank an hour later.

The most surprising thing about kayaking is that you are meant to fully twist your body to the side for each stroke.

It seems to fight against all natural co-ordination; all you want to do is keep your back centred and pull the paddle along the sides of the kayak but this, as Nick tells me, limits the power behind each stroke.

The hard work really began when I was sitting behind Nick in a two-person kayak.

While he cut through the water like a knife through butter, I felt like I was dragging hammers through tar and making no small complaint.

Somehow, I managed to keep my head above water for the whole session, but my feeble thigh, arm and back muscles certainly didn’t thank me for it.