NSWIS duo are World Champions

NSWIS sprint canoe athletes Murray Stewart and Riley Fitzsimmons were celebrating becoming world champions this weekend, taking out the K4 1000m at the ICF Canoe Sprint World Championships in the Czech Republic.

The duo, alongside teammates Ken Wallace and Jordan Wood, edged out a strong challenge from Hungary by just 0.35 seconds, with Germany taking bronze.

Stewart was the only remaining member of the Australian team that took Olympic gold in the event at London 2012, but admitted it was a bittersweet feeling following the news that the event would not be part of the Olympic schedule going forward.

“It’s definitely special to win a World Championship, we’ve come close a few times, but that was a good way to send the event off,” he said.

“It’s a pity that we won’t get to race it that much going forward, but it was good fun out there.”

Fellow NSWIS athlete Fitzsimmons was delighted to turn world junior gold in the K2 in 2015 into a senior world title. “We’ve been paddling in the boat once a week, and we’ve really been trying to do that exact race in training,” he said.

“I feel like in training we couldn’t quite really nail it, but today was our day, we did the perfect race.”