The Olympic Legacy in Georgia continues

Gainesville, Ga.- Ten athletes from the Lanier Canoe and Kayak Club are currently competing and training around the world! The Junior World Championships will be held this week in Racice, Czech Republic. Emily Vinson won the U.S. Women's K1 spot handily at the USACK Junior World team trials smashing the time standard by 6 seconds. She is poised to place well for the United States! Sheaffer Sorrells, Mary Taylor and Nicole Mallory will be competing in Men's and Women's K4 events. The team spent last week in Slovakia in final preparation for the event and are ready to go!

Emily will be the first athlete from Gainesville to race with her heat for the K1 1000M event starting at 9:56am. LCKC Head Coach Dave Robertson was named as one of the USACK Junior World team coaches and is with them in the Czech Republic. You should be able to keep up with the results a t www.kanoe.cz/rychlost/regattas/ 07jr/

Robert Finlayson, Alejandro Schvedhelm and Katie Hagler were named to the U.S. Pan American Games team and are currently in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Their final team camp was in Lake Placid, and they went through team processing in Washington, DC with the rest of the United States Pan American Games team. Katie reported that they will be competing under the hand of a large statue of Jesus on the rowing and canoe/kayak venue. They are also very excited and ready to compete. Competition for them starts on Wednesday with Robert Finlayson racing at 9:21 am in the Men's C1. Events will start Thursday for the women. You should be able to keep up with the Pan Am events at http://www.rio2007.org.br/data /pages/8CA3C784139C20FF0 1139C2C41550F77.htm

Sunday, the USACK Senior World Championships team, including Lanier Athletes Morgan House, Emily Mickle and Tim Hornsby, left for their final training camp in Italy prior to heading to Duisburg for the Championships on August 9 - 12. The Senior World Championships is the most important competition for the United States this year as is the first international qualifier for the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, China. The entire U.S. team has gone through a grueling season training to achieve the times required to qualify for the 2008 Olympic Games. This team is dedicated and working together well.

One of the best ways to keep up with their tour is Morgan's website at: www.morganhouse.us. You can also check for results on the Duisburg web site at: http://www.kanuwm.de/.

The sport continues to grow and make the competition for the few Olympic berths available even tougher. The Duisburg organizers are happy to report 1400 participants from 90 countries which is the largest world championships to date. There are now 142 member nations in the International Canoe Federation. Tickets to the opening ceremony and have sold out. This is compared to Lanier Canoe 2003 where we hosted 580 athletes from 66 countries which was the largest World Championships at that time.

US trials for the 2008 Olympic Games will be held in 2008 at a date and location TBD. The 2008 Olympic Games are likely to be the first to include legacy athletes from the Lanier Venue.

The Lanier Canoe and Kayak Club racing team will be reunited with many of our international athletes at the USACK Sprint National Championships that will be held in Seattle, Wash. this year on August 14 - 19. We will be defending our Club National Championships title. A win would bring home our 7th National Championships title.