Maple Ridge’s Brian Malfesi is headed to the Junior World Championships in Brandenburg, Germany this month after qualifying for the national junior team.
Malfesi has been paddling at the Ridge Canoe and Kayak Club at Whonnock Lake for seven years. He started paddling after his older brother, Mike, took up the sport. In his second year racing, Malfesi missed out on qualifying for the Western Canada Games team by one place.
Malfesi won the K1 1,000-metre event at last year’s junior national championships in Regina.
Malfesi is headed to Simon Fraser University in September to study biomedical engineering having won a boat-load of scholarships, including: The SFU Gordon Shrum Major Entrance; Mission Principals; Maple Ridge Trustees; Dogwood Provincial; Jack Fairly B.C. Sports Hall of Fame; and the Miller Thompson Foundation National Award Provincial Academic Scholarship.
Malfesi says he plans to continue paddling and hopes to make the U-23 national team, go to the senior world championships and maybe one day, race at the Olympics.
The world junior championships take place July 29-31.