Lee Valley athlete Phoebe Spicer is determined to leverage her home advantage as she represents British Canoeing at the renowned Lee Valley White Water Centre during the highly anticipated 2023 ICF Canoe Slalom World Championships.

Having started her canoeing journey at Lee Valley in 2013, the 23-year-old has remained committed to training at this venue ever since.

The Welwyn Garden City-born athlete discovered paddling through British Canoeing's Talent ID programme at the age of 13 and has since gone on to become a budding talent for British Canoeing.

“Being my first senior world championships, it was an amazing achievement, and also being able to do it in the year that it is at Lee Valley is definitely exciting," said Spicer.

“I think you definitely get a home advantage on your home course, but I'm mainly just excited to race.

“Having family and friends around will be nice, usually you don’t get that sort of support abroad, and also having a home crowd will help push us athletes along.”

Spicer, who is in her third year on the World Class Programme, delivered an outstanding performance at the Junior and Under-23 World Championships in Ivrea, Italy in 2018.

After finishing fourth in both the Under-23 C1 Team and Junior K1 Team events, she finished the meeting with a solid ninth place in the Junior K1 class.

The Hoddesdon-based athlete went on to praise the Lee Valley facility, adding: “The venue is probably one of the best in the world, you definitely get an advantage training here, we have great gym facilities here and we have offices here, so it’s very good.”

If you would you like to try out some activities at a world-class venue which played host to the canoe slalom events during the London 2012 Olympics book today at https://www.better.org.uk/leisure-centre/lee-valley/white-water-centre/activities.