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Displaying items by tag: Jenny Egan

#Canoeing: Jenny Egan produced a spirited fightback to take a bronze medal at the canoe sprint World Championships – her first in this championships. The Ireland K1 paddler fell back after a disappointing start at Montemor O Velho and had to claw her way from 15th to third. Lizzie Broughton of Britain sprinted away to take gold, with Maryna Litvinchuk of Belarus taking silver. Egan took bronze at the canoe marathon World Championships in 2017 and will compete in the marathon event again next month.  

Canoe Sprint World Championships, Montemor O Velho, Portugal (Irish interest)

Women

K1 5,000 metres: 3 J Egan 24 min 15.08 sec.

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#Canoeing: Ireland's Jenny Egan finished third in the canoe marathon World Cup race over 26.2 kilometres in Shanghai today. This was the final race of the International Canoe Federation series in Shaoxing and Shanghai. Egan took a silver and a bronze in the first and second races. The three medals brings her tally of medals in marathon events this year to six. 

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#Canoeing: Jenny Egan took bronze at the canoe marathon World Cup in Shanghai in China. Kristina Bedek of Serbia won the 3.6 kilometre K1 race, with Lizzie Broughton of Britain and Egan filling the next two slots in a close finish. Egan had taken silver on Monday at the World Cup in Shaoxing.  

 Ireland also had another good finish in Shanghai. Barry Watkins took fourth in the men’s race.   

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#Canoeing: Jenny Egan took a silver medal at the  ICF Marathon World Cup in Shaoxing, China. Anna Adamova Koziskova of the Czech Republic won a sprint finish with the Ireland athlete at the end of the 26.2 kilometre race. Lizzie Broughton of Britain was third.

 This World Cup is new on the international circuit and while the top marathon canoeists have been invited, not all have travelled. Unusually for this discipline, there has been prize money for competitors.

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#Canoeing: It’s 30 kilometres of high-adrenaline challenge; two hours of torture for arm muscles. Yes, it is time for the Liffey Descent, when hundreds of competitors will career down the river from Kildare into Dublin.

 The race on Saturday, September 23rd, runs from Straffan to Garda Boat Club in Islandbridge. Canoeists in everything from wildwater boats to the speedy racing kayaks (K1 and K2) will carefully negotiate or plunge over 10 weirs. Above the dam in Leixlip they must pull their boat out of the water and carry it for 500 metres. The top competitors will take just two minutes before plunging their craft into the water again.  

 Capsizes are inevitable, and spectators have a ringside view of the unexpected swims at the start, at 12 o’clock at the bridge at the K Club, and down the course at weirs at Lucan and Palmerstown.

 Jenny Egan, the bronze medallist at the World Marathon Championships in South Africa last weekend, will be a star attraction. “I’m really looking forward to it,” said the Ireland international. She won the women’s K1 in the Liffey Descent last year.

 Competitors from Spain, Denmark, Germany, Hungary, South Africa and Britain will line up with paddlers from all over Ireland in an event which has been running for more than five decades. 

 “We will have GPS trackers on selected lead competitors and internationals so the public can view their profiles and follow every step of their journey live online,” says Shane Cronin, the new Liffey Descent coordinator. 

 “We have world-class competitors involved and there could be very fast times. I think this could be one of the best races in recent times.”

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#Canoeing: Ireland’s Jenny Egan took a bronze medal in the K1 at the Canoe Marathon World Championships in Pietermaritzburg in South Africa. Lani Belcher, who competes for Britain, took gold at the head of a group of three which broke away from the rest of the field. Vanda Kiszli of Hungary took silver.

 Egan’s World Championship medal capped a season in which she won gold and bronze in the K1 5,000 at canoe sprint World Cup events.

 Rónán Ó Foghladha took fifth in the men’s junior K1.

Canoe Marathon World Championships, Pietermaritzburg, South Africa (Irish interest)

Men - K1: 19 B Watkins 2:15.26; 24 P Egan 2:19.07. Junior: 5 R Foley 1:45.48.

Women – K1: 1 Britain (L Belcher) 2 hrs 5 min 04 seconds, 2 Hungary (V Kiszli) 2:05.10, 3 Ireland (J Egan) 2:05.39; 17 A Smith 2:17.20

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#Canoeing: Ireland’s Jenny Egan finished 10th in the women’s K1 5,000 metres at the canoe sprint World Championships in Racice in the Czech Republic today. In a dramatic race, Dora Bodonyi of Hungary came out with the gold medal after a long battle with Tabea Medert of Germany, who took silver. Lani Belcher of Britain gritted it out as she found her way through the field and won bronze – near the end she clashed with Iuliana Salakhova of Russia, leaving the Russian in the water and out of the race.

 Egan’s chances suffered in rough-and-tumble early stages. She fought hard through the race but could not catch up with the leading group.  

Canoe Sprint World Championships, Racice, Czech Republic (Irish interest)

Women

K1 5000 Final: 1 Hungary 23 min 17.862 sec, 2 Germany 23:19.214, 3 Britain 23:28.236; 10 Ireland (J Egan) 24:34.562.

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#Canoeing: Jenny Egan has qualified for the semi-finals of the K1 200 metres at the Canoe Sprint World Championships. The Irish paddler finished seventh in her heat this morning in Racice in the Czech Republic, taking a place as one of the fastest losers. Her semi-final is secheduled for 2.44 Irish time on Saturday.

 Ireland’s Patrick O’Leary will compete in the A Final of the KL3 200, part of the Paracanoe World Championships, also in Racice. O’Leary finished third in his semi-final. His final is scheduled for 1.30 Irish time on Saturday.  

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#Canoeing: Ireland’s Jenny Egan took a bronze medal at the canoe sprint World Cup in Belgrade in Serbia today. Australia’s Alyssa Bull took the gold in the K1 5,000 metres from Laia Pelachs of Spain.

Egan (30) started her season with a win in the K1 5,000 at the first World Cup in Montemor-O-Velho in Portugal. She also competed in the second World Cup in Szeged in Hungary.

Canoe Sprint World Cup, Belgrade (Selected Results; Irish interest)

Women

K1 5,000 – Final: 1 Australia (A Bull) 22 minutes 26.080 seconds, 2 Spain (L Pelachs) 22:27.83, 3 Ireland (J Egan) 22:35.60.

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#Canoeing: Ireland’s Jenny Egan won the K1 5,000 metres at the first canoe sprint World Cup in Portugal today. The 30-year-old paddler had just .77 of a second to spare over Spain’s Estefania Fernandez after the long battle. Lizzie Broughton of Britain was third.

Canoe Sprint World Cup, Montemor-O-Velho, Portugal Day Two (Irish interest)

Women

K1 200 – A Final: 9 J Egan 42.743.

K1 5,000 – Final: 1 Ireland (J Egan) 22 mins 52.8 seconds, 2 Spain (E Fernandez) 22:53.57, 3 Britain (L Broughton) 22:56.98.

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Sharks in Irish waters

Irish waters are home to 71 species of shark, skates and rays, 58 of which have been studied in detail and listed on the Ireland Red List of Cartilaginous fish. Irish sharks range from small Sleeper sharks, Dogfish and Catsharks, to larger species like Frilled, Mackerel and Cow sharks, all the way to the second largest shark in the world, the Basking shark. 

Irish waters provide a refuge for an array of shark species. Tralee Bay, Co. Kerry provides a habitat for several rare and endangered sharks and their relatives, including the migratory tope shark, angel shark and undulate ray. This area is also the last European refuge for the extremely rare white skate. Through a European Maritime and Fisheries Fund (EMFF) project, Marine Institute scientists have been working with fishermen to assess the distribution, diversity, and monthly relative abundance of skates and rays in Tralee, Brandon and Dingle Bays.

“These areas off the southwest coast of Ireland are important internationally as they hold some of the last remaining refuges for angel shark and white skate,” said Dr Maurice Clarke of the Marine Institute. “This EMFF project has provided data confirming the critically endangered status of some species and provides up-to-date information for the development of fishery measures to eliminate by-catch.” 

Irish waters are also home to the Black Mouthed Catshark, Galeus melastomus, one of Ireland’s smallest shark species which can be found in the deep sea along the continental shelf. In 2018, Irish scientists discovered a very rare shark-nursery 200 nautical miles off the west coast by the Marine Institute’s ROV Holland 1 on a shelf sloping to 750 metres deep. 

There are two ways that sharks are born, either as live young or from egg casings. In the ‘case’ of Black Mouthed Catsharks, the nursery discovered in 2018, was notable by the abundance of egg casings or ‘mermaid’s purses’. Many sharks, rays and skate lay eggs, the cases of which often wash ashore. If you find an egg casing along the seashore, take a photo for Purse Search Ireland, a citizen science project focusing on monitoring the shark, ray and skate species around Ireland.

Another species also found by Irish scientists using the ROV Holland 1 in 2018 was a very rare type of dogfish, the Sail Fin Rough Shark, Oxynotus paradoxus. These sharks are named after their long fins which resemble the trailing sails of a boat, and live in the deep sea in waters up to 750m deep. Like all sharks, skates and rays, they have no bones. Their skeleton is composed of cartilage, much like what our noses and ears are made from! This material is much more flexible and lighter than bone which is perfect for these animals living without the weight of gravity.

Throughout history sharks have been portrayed as the monsters of the sea, a concept that science is continuously debunking. Basking sharks were named in 1765 as Cetorhinus maximus, roughly translated to the ‘big-nosed sea monster’. Basking sharks are filter feeders, often swimming with their mouths agape, they filter plankton from the water.

They are very slow moving and like to bask in the sun in shallow water and are often seen in Irish waters around Spring and early Summer. To help understand the migration of these animals to be better able to understand and conserve these species, the Irish Basking Shark Group have tagged and mapped their travels.

Remarkably, many sharks like the Angel Shark, Squatina squatina have the ability to sense electricity. They do this via small pores in their skin called the ‘Ampullae of Lorenzini’ which are able to detect the tiny electrical impulses of a fish breathing, moving or even its heartbeat from distances of over a kilometre! Angel sharks, often referred to as Monkfish have a distinctively angelic shape, with flattened, large fins appearing like the wings of an angel. They live on the seafloor in the coastal waters of Ireland and much like a cat are nocturnal, primarily active at night.

The intricate complexity of shark adaptations is particularly noticeable in the texture of their skin. Composed of miniscule, perfectly shaped overlapping scales, the skin of shark provides them with protection. Often shark scales have been compared to teeth due to their hard enamel structure. They are strong, but also due to their intricate shape, these scales reduce drag and allow water to glide past them so that the shark can swim more effortlessly and silently. This natural flawless design has been used as inspiration for new neoprene fabric designs to help swimmers glide through the water. Although all sharks have this feature, the Leafscale Gulper Shark, Centrophorus squamosus, found in Ireland are specifically named due to the ornate leaf-shape of their scales.