MEMBERS of Chester Canoe Club turned in some excellent performances when they travelled to Nottingham for the National Sprint Championships and National Sprint Regatta.

The highlight of the weekend came for Chester's under 12 paddlers, who were racing at the National Water Sports Centre for the first time.

They performed exceptionally well and in the 1km K1 girls race Elinor Holland came third, Marsha Hayes sixth and Lucy Kelly 10th.

In the K2 over the same distance, Elinor and Marsha teamed up and raced brilliantly to win by more than a boat length. In the junior K4 event over 1,000m Elinor, Marsha and Lucy teamed up with Maddie De Ferrer from Elmbridge to come second.

Over 500m, the same K4 crew came third while in the K2 Elinor and Lucy paired up to finish second.

Elinor claimed third in the first K1 final, with Marsha finishing second in the second final.

Marvin Hayes, racing for the first time in the boys D class, did well in the K1 500m and 1,000m races to produce good times which he can now work on improving for the next regatta.

Caroline Rowlands, meanwhile, had a packed weekend, racing in all the girls B events. Her best results came in the K4 events. She was in the stroke seat for the first world class start U16 crew, where they won the 1,000m and were just beaten to the line in the 500m by an U18 crew.

In the K2, paddling with Steph Holmes, from Worcester, she finished third in the 1,000m and fifth in the 500m.

In the K1, Caroline finished second in final two of both the 1,000m and 500m.

In the women's B class, Chester had Kim Dawson and Liz Holmes racing for the club. The K1 1,000m saw Liz finish ninth, while in the 200m K1 Kim finished fourth in final 1 and Liz was third in final 2.

In the K1 500m, Kim finished seventh. She also raced as part of the Olympic racing squad and in the K4 500m her crew finished second. Kim has now been selected in the Great Britain team for the under 23 Bochum international regatta in Germany.

In the women's C class, Chester's Victoria Swallow finished fourth in the 1,000m K1. She paired up with Maggie Dilai from Pennine in the K2 to finish third in the 1,000m and fifth in the 500m.

In the K4, Victoria and Liz teamed up with two others to compete in the women's A K4 where they finished second in the 1,000m and third in the 500m.

The masters A class saw Melvin Swallow finished fourth in the K1 1,000m and seventh in the 500m. In the K2, he teamed up with Graham Illidge of Runcorn to win the 5k race and finished third in the 500m.

* Chester Canoe Club's Caroline Rowlands attended an under 16 world-class start trip to an international regatta in Ghent, Belgium. In the K1 500m she made the final but had problems at the start and ended up finishing eighth.

In the K2, she again teamed up with Steph Holmes to finish fourth in the final, and in the K4 her crew finished third.