Adelaide canoeist Josephine Bulmer continued her excellent start to 2016 by winning a second gold medal in the women’s C1 200 final at the National Canoe Sprint Championships in Perth on Thursday.
It followed her triumph in the C1 500 final on Wednesday. A fantastic performance considering she has only spent a year training in the C1 boat after spending close to a decade of her junior years racing in the kayak class.
“It feels really good especially as I have only been doing it for just under a year now so it is awesome,” Bulmer said.
The 19-year-old made the switch to the canoe class in 2015 on the recommendation of her coach.
“It was suggested to me by my coach and the opportunity to race at the Olympics came up as well,” Bulmer said.
“I always thought it was a cool thing that I may want to try and when the opportunity to maybe take it further came up it was really exciting to try something new.”
Although Bulmer has not ruled out competing in a kayak again she believes that she has a better chance of racing at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics in the canoe class.
“Probably and I think after doing kayaking for nine years it was a good opportunity to start something new and be fresh.”
Bulmer is hoping that her results will warrant selection to the under-23 national team this year.
“I will hopefully get to go to Belarus to race at the under-23 World Championships and hopefully keep setting PB’s and working my way up slowly.”
The Adelaide paddler has come a long way in the past 12 months and now hopes to improve on putting a race together now to take the next step in her paddling.
“The steering has started to come together which was a massive challenge at the beginning, steering and balance, but that is all coming together now so probably just working on a race to come together and working on my race plans and stuff like that.”
Bulmer won the C1 200 final in 57.62, 7.72 seconds ahead of fellow South Australian Kristen Woodcock with ACT’s Louise Yabsley finishing a close third.
Photo Credit: Sportscene.tv
