REPRESENTING the country is often just a dream for many athletes, however after only one year of training, a local girl will be joining Team GB at the European championships in Paris next autumn.
Jasmine Kinsman (14) from Winnersh began freestyle kayaking a year ago, and recently qualified for the GB junior women’s team.
Not only did she qualify, but she came top of the leaderboard, scoring the most points for her well-practiced tricks, beating many athletes who have been in the sport for years.
Jasmine and her sister Chloe (16) picked the sport up a year ago, having previously enjoyed flat-water kayaking. Now, they train together and travel across the country for competitions.
Attributing her success to her sporty background and determination, Jasmine said: “I’ve always been sporty, I play football, netball and rounders all week.
“When I first started freestyle kayaking, I started going to the gym three or four times a week to train my body to be more explosive.
“In the summer, I went to a three week camp, where I set myself the goal of improving enough to get selected for the team. We trained in Nottingham, Austria, Germany and France. When you practise like that all day every day, you make very quick progress.”
A freestyle kayaking competition is made up of three, 45 second runs. During the 45 seconds, the kayakers must perform as many high-scoring tricks as possible. The highest two out of the three scores are then taken by the judges.
Speaking about training with her sister, Jasmine said: “We’re the only two sisters that do this together. It brings us a lot closer because of the hobby we share.
“Even though we are competing against each other, we always know the other one is there.”
Vicky Kinsman, Jasmine’s mum said: “I have so much pride for my daughters. As a family, we have an amazing relationship becuase of how much time we spend together.
“As parents, we’re like kayaking butlers, we take the boats and equipment up and down the country for training and competitions. It’s a lot of time to spend in the car together and we have such a supportive relationship because of it.”
Jasmine and Chloe train every weekend and once during the week. Their training involves repeating tricks until they can repeat them with muscle memory, and watching other freestyle kayaking videos to hone their technique and styles of padding.
Packing up their kit to train at Hurley Weir, Jasmine explained how dependent training is on rainfall.
“We’ve had a lot of rain this week, so the river is really high. This means we can go down to Hurley Weir and train on the waves produced by the rushing water.
“Loads of professionals train at Hurley, it’s a really good weir for freestyle kayaking. However, you do get lots of the public staring at you, wondering what you’re doing.
“I’ve had crowds of twenty watching me train, I feel like I need to put on a performance for them.”
The two girls only train at weirs that their coach approves, to ensure they are not putting themselves in danger.
With the Paris European Championships approaching, Jasmine now has a year to perfect her skills.
“I plan on working just as hard as I have this year, and would love to win a medal. After the European Championships, I’m hoping that I can qualify for the World Championships in 2021.”
Freestyle kayaking is a sport that receives no funding, which means Jasmine and her parents have to foot the bill for all her training, competitions and equipment.
She is currently on the look out for a local business to sponsor her, so that she can continue her sporting ventures. She also has a Just Giving page:
