Tori Maloney

One of Thule’s youngest Partners In Sport is Tori Maloney is already a highly accomplished kayaker. The youngster, who lives with her parents Neil and Helen in Twickenham, started kayaking at the tender age of ten, where she began training at the Thames Young Mariners centre in Richmond Upon Thames. Proving a natural, Tori completed her basic sailing courses, before moving onto slalom racing.

Tori’s first competition was a race on the River Loddon near Reading three years ago. It was at this race where she achieved first place, and a promotion to division three of the British Canoe Union’s ranking- after this Tori really caught the kayaking bug.

Since then, the teenager has competed in around 20 or so races and events each year, where she has had continued success. Tori has gained considerable experience, and has been greatly helped in her progress by the coaches and some of the junior and senior GB team at these events. In fact, Tori has been told that she is a potential candidate for the 2012 Olympics.

Tori, who attends St David’s all girls school in Ashford, Middlesex, says she loves nothing better than being on the water: “Kayaking is something I just love to do,” she says, “most of my friends and teachers think I’m absolutely mad, throwing myself down waterfalls, but it gives me a real buzz and the feeling of winning a competition against my piers and elders really is great.”

Tori says she is grateful to Thule for its sponsorship, and hopes it will help her achieve her goal of becoming a world class athlete. She said: “I appreciated that finding somebody to have faith in my still relatively unproven abilities was going to be quite difficult so I am grateful that Thule has confidence in me.”