Chellew’s is an amazing story, having twice beaten cancer, including a battle earlier in the year just to compete at the world titles.

And then while training in Hungary, prior to the championships she received the news that her father had passed away.

Dianne had a great race in the K1, finishing third not far behind the Latvian, Lldse Blumbaha who beat her by a much larger margin last year.

Lldse and Dianne then teamed up for the doubles and paddled in a boat they borrowed from the Finnish men to blitze the field in the difficult and highly technical course over 22kms, which included five portages to win gold.

In an amazing performance it was their first time together in the boat – Lldse spoke not a word of English and Di no Latvian or Russian. The only word they had in common was Ya.

They actually planned their race strategy by drawing in the dirt with a stick!”

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