International Canoe Federation

Claiming no less than two golds and one bronze, Rachel's first 2010 appearance on the international stage went down a storm. Here are some of her reactions to the event:

“It feels like we’ve been waiting a while to race because we [Team GB Ladies] didn’t do the previous world cup races, it meant that I didn’t have a feel for where I would be against the competition, but I was ready to compete and looking forward to it.”

Commenting about her bronze medal in the Women's K1 200m; “I certainly didn’t expect to make the final, our training focuses on the longer distances of 500m and 1000m, so to make the final and then medal, that was a surprise!”

Talking about her 1000m where she was up against strong German competition Rachel said; “I had a good start, got caught up and then accelerated at the 500m mark. I just focused on thinking about going quickly and not the competition.”

The next day, Rachel was to compete in the K1 500m. Going into the race she seemed quite relaxed; “There will be some of the bigger names there, some of which won’t have competed in races beforehand like me, but I’m welcoming the shorter distance – to give my arms a bit of a rest!”

Sure enough, on the third day came her third medal. The 500m was a real challenge after her packed weekend; “I found the semi-final much tougher than I had expected, it was hard to qualify to the final. In the final I couldn’t see [Josefa] Idem or [Katrin] Wagner-Augustin but I did have Henriette [Engel Hansen] nearby, she set off really fast so I just concentrated on chasing her. There were the big names in the 500m, some of which hadn’t competed in individual events yesterday, but I felt confident with what I had to do.”

Commenting on how she felt going into the race, “I felt a bit tired today after Friday and Saturday’s racing, but I achieve personal bests after a heavy week of training, so this was no different really – I knew I could do it here. My coach, Miklos Simon said that I should have saved a bit in yesterday’s 1000m race, after winning by such a margin, but I couldn’t resist speeding to the finish.”

Keep an eye out for our exclusive interview with Rachel which will be online soon.