Despite being in her first year of the U23 age group, the World Junior Bronze medallist delivered two textbook 500m races, taking the individual K1 gold before replicating the result in the K2 event with Royal Canoe Club’s Zoe Clark.

After a fast start in the K1 race, Armstrong stayed in the race to halfway, remaining calm and composed. Sticking to her race plan, she gradually pulled back each of the competitors with every stroke and ultimately won the title by half a boat length.

When talking with Paddle UK a delighted Kristina said: “I took some real confidence from racing the heats and semifinals earlier in the week.

“I had no expectations of myself this morning, I just wanted to execute the race plan that my Coach (Anton Vasquez) and I had discussed beforehand and hopefully get a personal best. So I knew exactly what I wanted to do, whilst I was nervous at the start, once the start buckets dropped it was just go, go and attack it. Throughout the race I knew I was up there and I knew my second 250m was my strong point, so I had faith in that. In the last 150m I just put everything on the line and somehow managed to gain half a second over everyone. I knew conditions were going to be really fast so my main goal was to try and get a PB so to come away with the win and a five second PB is just wow.’’

Just four hours later, Kristina was back in her second final of the day, this time with Royal's Zoe Clark in the K2 500m. Once again they raced to perfection. Sitting in third place at the midway point, the pair were within the medal mix for the whole race. In the final 100 metres the duo overtook their competitors in the dying stages to secure the win by just 0.084 seconds in 1:41.917, ahead of the Czech Republic and Slovakian crews.

Again chatting to Paddle UK Kristina said: “Winning the K1 filled me with such confidence for the K2. I knew if we had a good race and executed it the way we wanted, we would be close to the medals. We were nervous beforehand but once we got on the water we just relaxed and focused. We knew we had a strong second 250m again so it was about keeping our composure. As we were racing I knew we were in the middle of the pack so we stayed calm then with 150m to go we just put our heads down and went for it.

“I didn't realise we'd won until Zoe burst into tears then I screamed. It was amazing because it was so close at the end.”

Zoe added: “I don’t know if it was the perfect race, but it's all a bit of a blur, I knew we started well, then with about 150m to go I took a cheeky look across the course and thought I think we're in front so I just put my head down and tried to strive for the line.

“We've done our race plan a lot over the last few months, we've drilled the boat so much and we were confident with it so it was almost automatic.

“Just before the race I was really nervous, especially because Kristina had won the K1, I really wanted to finish the job. As soon as we got on the water, the boat started to feel good and I thought we've got this.



“I'm just so happy.”

Congratulations to Kristina and the whole team and keep up the great work!