Medal joy for the Christie sisters

And, to cap a memorable week, she also took a fantastic silver alongside sister Emma in the U23 women’s canoe double.

The siblings are both members of the Break Out Canoe Club in Leicestershire and 19-year-old Kerry stormed to victory in Bosnia & Herzegovina, clocking 19:36.23 to finish over six seconds ahead of Switzerland’s Hannah Müller, with Czech Republic’s Tereza Kneblova completing the podium.

And she then combined with Emma as they finished just under 14 seconds behind the Italian pair of Cecilia and Alice Panato in a time of 22:13.68 to clinch silver in the canoe double.

Kerry went out first in the U23 women’s kayak classic race, meaning an anxious wait to see if she would be knocked off top spot.

But no-one could match her time and deny her a brilliant gold in her debut season at this age-group.

“I just can’t believe it,” she said.

“It’s very pleasing. I’m very happy with how I did.

“I felt good going down. We got given splits halfway down and I was doing how I wanted to do, then it finished how I wanted it to.

“I was nervous because I didn’t really have a clue where I was going to be. I kept thinking they were going to go quicker and they never did.

“It’s my first season at U23s so I didn’t really know how I was going to place or anything.

“I knew I would maybe be up there but didn’t know anything else. It’s been a really good competition for me, the best I’ve ever done.”

For Emma, it was a hard-fought silver after an 11th-place finish in the junior women’s kayak race earlier in the day.

And despite ending the day with a medal in the U23 women’s canoe double classic, the 18-year-old believes there is still room for improvement.

“We had some dodgy lines in some places,” she said.

“We had splits in C2 and we were 15 seconds up – it was quite nice to get there and hear that and then just worked hard from there.

“It’s quite hard, there’s a lot to get used to. I have U23s next year so it will be even harder.”