A YORK teenager has burst onto the national canoeing scene after a medal-winning performance at the European Championships in his first outing for Great Britain.

No sooner had he finished his A-Levels at Tadcaster Grammar School than Barry Kell, 18, joined up with the British junior and under-23 teams to compete in Banja Luka, Bosnia and Herzegovina, for Team GB.

Competing in the C2 class, Kell and partner Ryan Westley finished seventh in a field of 23 in an initial ‘every boat for itself’ competition.

Then, all three GB boats joined forces for the teams final and Kell and Westley emerged with a silver medal.

They went into the competition ranked as Britain’s second boat out of three but their performance at the championships has seen the bumped up to first.

Having started canoeing “just for fun” when he was 11, Appleton Roebuck-based Kell began competing more seriously at the age of 13 and started training with the GB junior team at the National Water Sports Centre in Nottingham a few months ago.

Team-mate Westley has moved around the country with his parents and ended up at boarding school in the Bristol, with the distance between the two making training and team-building a challenge.

Just as his academic career was coming to a head with A-Level exams on the horizon, Kell was offered the opportunity to train in Nottingham with the Great Britain coaching staff.

However, he has managed to manage the workload of both commitments and, despite a burgeoning canoeing career, Kell intends to continue his studies by taking up a place at Sheffield Hallam University in September to study physiotherapy.

He will attempt to marry his studies with his training schedule in Nottingham – despite the 120-mile round trip – as he and Westley look to forge their way into the British Under-23 setup.

“It’s going to get hard but it’s been really hard in the last few months with Ryan in Bristol,” he said. “The challenge will be maintaining the work ethic to keep on studying at university while also training.”

Kell is keeping his feet firmly on the ground regarding his prospects in the sport and any whispers of him making a case for a place in the GB team at the London Olympics next year have been humbly put to bed.

He said: “For the next few years I’ll be aiming first and foremost to get into the under-23 team but that’s going to be difficult.

“The competition will be fierce with the quality and sheer number of boats trying to get into that team.”

Kell can look forward to racking up some air miles competing for his country next summer.

If he is able to grab a place in the under-23 squad he will be able to pencil in next summer’s Under-23 Canoe Slalom World Championships in Wausau, Wisconsin, and European Championships in Solkan, Slovenia, as his next major international competitions.