Tenacious Egan takes fourth place in China
JENNY Egan produced a most tenacious performance to finished fourth in the ICF Senior Canoe Marathon World Championships in China.
Having been struck down with an untimely bug just a day before she was due to race in the shorter distance over 3.6km with two portages, the Lucan kayaker opted to still compete and managed a tremendous sixth place finish.
Lucan kayaker Jenny Egan recorded fourth and sixth place finishes in China (Image: Carolyn Cooper)
While she hoped the effects of her illness would subside ahead of the long distance competition over almost 26km, they instead increased.
Yet the 2017 World Marathon Championship bronze medallist demonstrated huge mental strength in lining out for that race and challenged all the way for a podium spot up until the final portage where she was blocked out by a rival.
Still Egan has every reason to feel more than proud of her efforts given all that she had to contend with.
“I was feeling really great coming into this event. I had done a lot of kilometres” she told The Echo.
“I competed in the short course event on Thursday, but the day before I’d started feeling sick with stomach cramps. I don’t know how I did it, but I got into the final and I finished sixth.
“I was hoping it would clear up before the long distance which was over 25.9km with six portages, but on Friday night I was up feeling just really nauseous and cramping.
“I felt awful but I really wanted to compete having come all this way.
“From the start of the race I was in the lead group and four eventually broke away- myself, two Hungarians [Vanda Kiszli and Zsofia Czellai-Voros] and a British kayaker [Lizzie Broughton].
“But on the last portage which was about 750m from the finish I got blocked out by one of the Hungarians and my boat filled with water and I eventually finished in fourth place.
“It was disappointing not to get a medal but, all things considering, I was happy with my performance” said the Dubliner.
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