A STUDENT from Slyne is to join the British team for a two-month tour across some of Europe's whitest waters.

Rob Sellers has won a place in the country's junior freestyle kayak team to compete in the European Championships in Spain - and at a host of other venues in an eight weeks odyssey.

It will be a first taste of international competition for the 17-year-old who is a sports fitness and coaching student at Lancaster and Morecambe College.

But already ambitious Rob has his sights set on a place in the British team that will compete in the World Championships next summer in Australia.

Rob got his first taste of canoeing on a school trip in 1999 and hasn't been able to keep off the water since.

He told the Citizen: "It was just something I enjoyed straight away and so I joined a local club and made it my hobby. I have been entering competitions for two years now and I just can't get enough of it."

Freestyle kayaking is the art of making a kayak do stunts, tricks and manoeuvres on river waves and hydraulics - a kind of cross between surfing and snow-boarding but in a two-metres long plastic boat!

His break into the British team means Rob - who will be 18 next month - will also be competing in Euro-cup and other European events on his travels around the continent.

Rob has to travel every weekend to train at the British National White Water Centre in Nottingham and says its been hard work because there is not much financial support for his relatively new branch of sport. He has had to rely so far on the help and support of his parents.

But he is now hoping to find sponsors to help him in the quest for a place in the senior British team - call 01524-825400 to find out more and to help.