Kayaking: Dawson lands 12th in champs

New Zealand kayaker Mike Dawson has scored his best result at the canoe slalom world championships in the United States yesterday, having narrowly missed a spot in the final.

The Tauranga paddler finished 12th in the semifinals, bettering the 16th he collected when qualifying for the London Olympics in 2011.

His 105.66 second time, on the tricky Adventure Sports Center International course on Deep Creek Lake, Maryland, was just 1.13 seconds away from progressing to the top-10 final.

"I'm a bit gutted to have come so close to making the final but overall I'm stoked - this is my best worlds' result and it came after a tough start to the year when I had my wrist operated on," Dawson said.

"The semifinal course was really technical and particularly tricky and I made a few small mistakes but it was great to lay down a good, solid run in the semifinal of a world championship, on a hard course, under pressure."

Dawson took a while to warm up in his first qualifying run, hitting four gates and finishing nearly 19 seconds off the pace to lie in 45th, but a much-improved second heat of 101.22 seconds pushed him into 22nd and comfortably qualified him for the semifinals.

Young Tauranga paddlers Ben Gibb and Shaun Higgins also had memorable world champs. C1 paddler Gibb had his best world championship result, finishing 39th, after fighting back from a missed gate in his first run. Higgins also made positive gains since coming back after his shoulder surgery last year, finishing 45th.

Rotorua Olympian Luuka Jones comfortably qualified for Monday's K1 women's semifinals with a superb first heat. Jones had a faultless run clocking 114.68 seconds, the fifth-fastest of the session, and elected not to paddle the second run, eventually qualifying 10th.

"It's the first time I've ever had the luxury of doing that," said Jones.