Hartley bagged bronze in the K1 1000m on a windy morning. After finishing third in the semi-finals for an automatic qualifier to the A-finals, Hartley had to settle for an outside lane. A poor start saw her lying 7^th after 250m. By 750m she had worked her way up to 4^th and then managed to pip Henriette Engel-Hansen of Denmark for the bronze. It was a close race as only 1 second separated the top 3. Hungary’s Katalin Kovacs sealing the Gold with Franziska Weber of Germany taking silver.

On Sunday Hartley also won the B-Final in the K1 500m.

“I must take this as another learning curve for the bigger picture to build on for the next few years. So far I have had a good year of training and racing, and all my competitors have many more years of racing and training in the bag already,” she said afterwards. Considering this is the first time she has competed at the World Championships in the 1000m and 500m events, there is much to look forward to.

Sprint World Championship A-Finals

Women’s K1 1000m

1 Katalin Kovacs (Hun) 3:59.846

2 Franziska Weber (Ger) 4:00.429

3 Bridgitte Hartley (SA) 4:00.966