Kimberley Woods impresses as home favourites sail through to semi-finals at Canoe Slalom World Championships

The men's and women's C1 classes took to the course today ©ICF

British canoeists enjoyed a superb second day at the ICF Canoe Slalom World Championships here today, as all of their competitors reached the semi-final stage of the men’s and women’s C1 events.

The home challenge in the women’s C1 class was led by Kimberley Woods as the 19-year-old, who won silver at the Krakow World Cup event earlier this year, produced a superb run to complete the course in 1min 39.45sec.

However, the reigning European champion was given a two second penalty for touching one of the gates during the heat, although she remained top of the leaderboard at the end of the competition to qualify fastest for the semi-finals, which are due to be held on Sunday.

“I was hoping to get through on the first run because it is not a nice place to be on second runs so I am glad I managed to put a really solid run down,” Woods said afterwards.

“There was a lot of pressure yesterday on kayaks going into second runs and to do such an amazing run has given me a lot of confidence.

“I knew with my skills on the water in C1 with a solid run I could easily get through.”

Woods was joined by her compatriots Eilidh Gibson and Mallory Franklin as they both produced clean runs to complete the course in 1:43.03 and 1:50.31 respectively to finish fourth and ninth in the qualification round, with the top 15 progressing.

However, the strongest challenge to Woods’ lead unsurprisingly came from the veteran Czech canoeist Stepanka Hilgertová and Australia’s Jessica Fox, who has won the world title in the event at the past two editions.

Michal Martikán needed two heats to secure his place in the semi-finals ©ICF

The 47-year-old Hilgertová, who won Olympic golds at Atlanta 1996 and Sydney 2000, posted a time of 1:41.72 to qualify in second position, while Fox put her difficult opening run in the K1 event to the back of her mind to finish third in 1:42.57.

Austria’s Nadine Weratschnig, Germany’s Kira Kubbe, Spain’s Miren Lazkano, Russia’s Zulfia Sabitov and Slovenia’s Nina Bizjak were thankful for the second run as they secured the remaining five spots in the 20-woman final.

There was a major surprise in the first heat of the men’s C1 competition as the four-time champion Michal Martikán of Slovakia finished 64th out of 72 competitors having been given a 50 second penalty after being adjudged not to have fully put his head through a gate.

The 36-year-old, who is chasing a record-equalling fifth gold, would atone for his error by being one of 10 ten who secured berths in the final from the second heat.

His compatriot Matej Benus had no need for a second run as he completed the course in 1:26.42 to boast the fastest time in the first heat which sees him continue the kind of form which helped him claim the 2015 World Cup title.

Last year’s bronze medallist Franz Anton of Germany qualified second fastest for the semi-final in 1:26.67 while Slovenia’s Luka Bozic was a further 0.10sec further back to complete the top three of the 20 initial qualifiers.

Britain’s David Florence, who was the world champion in this event at Prague 2013, came home 16th with a time of 1:30.30 and he was joined by his team-mates Adam Burgess and Ryan Westley in making the semi-finals.