WINDSOR slalom canoeist Mallory Franklin needs to focus her energies on one discipline, according to retired two-time Olympic silver medallist Richard Hounslow.

Despite being just 22-years-old, Franklin has already achieved plenty in the sport, including winning back-to-back World silver medals in 2013 and 2014.

That came in the C1 event, involving a boat in which you kneel in and use a one-bladed paddle.

Franklin has also been known to compete in the K1 event – a one-seater kayak where you sit and use a paddle with blades at both ends – and helped Britain to team gold at the 2014 Under-23 Championships.

Of those two events, only the K1 is currently an Olympic discipline for women, although discussions are currently taking place as to whether it should replace the men’s C2 at Tokyo 2020 to ensure better gender equality on the Olympic programme.

While there are no assurances that it will definitely make the programme at the next Olympics, Hounslow believes his former teammate has more of a chance of establishing herself as one of the world’s best if she concentrates on C1 competition.

“I would like to see Mallory focus just on the women’s C1. We’ve not got a huge amount of depth at the moment in the women’s K1 and C1,” he said.

“In the women’s K1 there was three athletes, they were all going to make the team and that was it. We had some junior athletes that were coming up but they were a bit behind.

“I personally would push for Mallory to try and focus on the women’s C1 and pull away from the K1, just because she has got a lot of competition with Kimberley Woods.

"Woods is probably a bit better in the K1 and they are on a par in the C1, so that fight for the Tokyo spot is going to be really tough.

"So if she is serious about winning gold then I think the needs to focus on one event.”

Hounslow is no longer competing on the international canoe circuit having retired from the sport at the start of 2017, although he is now venturing into coaching.

He was also present recently at a workshop for 50 athletes who are now being aided by support from The Nottingham Building Society alongside charity SportsAid and given their chance to shine.

With the chance to help the next generation of canoeing stars, Hounslow was excited to see how he could pass on his own experiences to others in the long term.

He explained: “I’m going to be doing the U23s, but these days when you talk about U23s they’re the guys that we’re trying to get to the Olympics.

"So it could be a case of me coaching people and then they might have to move up even as an U23, to the senior coaches. Then I have to focus on getting more people to do that.

“But it’s great for them, to try and learn from my experiences, and I can try and help to speed up their transition into the senior programme and hopefully get them some Olympic medals themselves.”

Nottingham Building Society and Harrison Murray teamed up with SportsAid in 2013 to help future sports stars get their time to shine. Visit thenottingham.com to find out more.

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