Ben Higson, a Year 9 pupil of Cowbridge Comprehensive School, travelled to Sort in Spain for the International Canoe Federation, World Freestyle Championships at the end of June, where he represented Great Britain.

There were three places available for junior men (born between January 1st 2000 and December 31st 2004) in K1 kayak and he earned his place at a selection event at the end of April.

Consequently, at the age of 14 – and as the youngest competitor – Ben was competing against other paddlers, up to age 18.

A team of 25 GB paddlers, competing across the different classes, travelled out to Sort with 2 British coaches, a physio and a team manager.

There was a week of official training, with just 2 minutes per athlete per day on the specially made feature, resulting in high pressure training sessions.

Freestyle kayaking is where paddlers use white water waves or holes (a feature) to perform tricks such as summersaults, cartwheels and spins whilst staying in the hole.

Each trick has a different number of points allocated to it, depending on the difficulty of the manoeuvre; an incorrect angle or execution means that no points are awarded.

If you flush (get washed off the feature downstream) then the move doesn't count.

Athletes have 45 seconds to get as many points as possible and are only able to score each trick once.

Junior K1 men's heats were on the 1st July.

Ben's first ride was in heat 3 and he came away with just 10 points for a spin - due to not scoring on his planned entry move, the "Mcnasties" (a half spin linked to a loop) and 'flushing' on his big loop - so he had a lot to make up in the second ride.

In this, he scored his "Mcnasties", giving him 200 and a total combined of 210 points. This put him in 21st place, with only the top 10 going through to the semi finals.

Despite this, as the youngest competitor in the team, he shows real promise for the future and his achievement of 21st out of 30 is a very impressive result.

Ben Higson is now focused on getting to the European Championships in 2020.

His training schedule is already mapped out for the next few months, with 3 weeks of training camp taking him to features in both Germany and France.

To watch the event, click the red button below.

Ben Higson's rides are at 58 minutes and 1.08 of the heats Jnr Km under the sessions drop down.