Lena Kraus has third World Championships in her sights

Lena Kraus represented Team GB at the Canoe Ocean Racing World Championships last month.

And, after jumping 30 places compared to her finish at the previous World Championships, she is keen once again to compete in the pinnacle of the sport.

Kraus came home 27th in the overall women’s category after finishing 57th in Australia 12 months earlier.

She told Courier Sport: “I would love to go again.

“Next year’s World Championships will be held in South Africa (the country that still pretty much dominates ocean paddling, even though other countries have started to catch up).

“It will be really special to race there and a bit scary too.

“The waves get a lot bigger.

“With how many strong South African paddlers there are, I might have to resign myself to being relegated a bit further down the field again too.

“At this stage, it’s mostly a question of whether I can keep funding my training and racing.

“If I can make it work, I’ll definitely go!”

Lena Kraus was part of the Team GB squad competing at the Canoe Ocean Racing World Championships

The 33-year-old was pleased with her performance and felt that there was more to come.

She said: “In my age group (24-34 – senior women) I placed 13th.

“This is the same position I had last year, but I was closer time-wise.

“It was a two-hour race and I was only two minutes off a top-10 position.

“I have a strong sense that I still have the potential to keep progressing fairly quickly before the curve starts flattening out if I keep building on my momentum.

“I’m determined to try and so excited to find out where it leads me.”

One of the main differences between Madeira and Kraus’s training ground of North Berwick, where she lives, is the heat.

However, the county athlete felt that her training had prepared her for the world championships, where she competed in the Single Surfski Women’s Open Category.

Kraus, who works as a literary translator, said: “I keep finding that North Berwick is an excellent place to train. I do my sessions here in all sorts of conditions (almost – obviously I can’t go out when there’s a storm), and that prepared me really well for Madeira.

“In the race, we had a 2km stretch to the first turn buoy, which mostly came down to fitness and a bit of strategy.

“From then on, we had 6-8km of lovely downwind conditions (where you paddle with the wind and the waves; these are usually the conditions we wish for in ocean paddling).

“After that, we still paddled downwind, but right into (and against) one of the big ocean currents that collide off the coast of Madeira.

“This built up the waves much higher and made them harder to catch and more irregular.

“I was so focused on my race I barely noticed the shift, and training in the clapotis around Craigleith, where I do regular time trials, prepared me perfectly for still putting power through my paddle.

“The last bit of the race was into a headwind and that’s definitely tough.

“My coach had put some really long interval sessions on the plan over the summer and I just kept telling myself that finishing the race can’t be tougher than those sessions, in which I also did at least half of the efforts into the wind.”

And if Kraus – who moved to Scotland from Germany in 2019 – makes it to South Africa, she would be proud to represent Team GB once again on the international stage.

She added: “I learned so much paddling in the UK (I lived in Cornwall and did some of my favourite races from there before I moved to Scotland), it has shaped me as a person, and I am really honoured to paddle for GB.

“When it comes to Scotland, I feel like I’ve been welcomed with open arms, which means a lot.

“I feel at home here.

“Scotland is where I discovered ocean paddling and this has changed my life for the better. I’m super grateful, and racing for Scotland feels like a small way to express that.

“I have lived here for a long time, so it feels normal to me to race for Scotland (and/or GB), not Germany, even though I absolutely love training with my first canoe club when I visit family. None of us have any say in where we are born, and the people around us shape us so much more than borders.”