Canoe Racing NZ Sprint Champs & Oceania Champs Friday report

Canoe Racing NZ Sprint Champs & Oceania Champs Friday report

Day One at the Oceania & NZ Canoe Sprint Championships saw fast conditions in a clear sunny day at Blue Lake in Rotorua.

The first day of three was principally qualifying rounds for finals later in the weekend. However there were four key Olympic distance finals today. First out was the open men’s premium event, being the K1 1000m. Here we saw Ben Fouhy back in action against Australia’s Kenny Wallace. Wallace was bronze medallist in Beijing and finished fifth in the K2 at London, and today dominated the K1 putting 3.5 seconds on Fouhy who finished second. Another Australian, Lachlan Tame finished third with some of New Zealand’s emerging talent being Jasper Bats, Zac Quickenden and Alex Fort filling the next places. Missing from this final was Olympian Darryl Fitzgerald who unfortunately had to withdraw due to a back injury.

The next final was the Under 23 women over 500m, where we saw the fast rising star Caitlin Ryan smash her previous personal best by 4 seconds heading off AYOF star Lucy Johnston.

Kayla Imrie finished third showing big improvement in her performance to close the gap to Ryan. The Under 18 paddler Danielle Curry finished fourth.

In the age group men we saw the final of the Under 18 K2 1000m. Wanganui pairing of Brown and Nossiter headed the field from the chasing crew of Bay of Plenty’s Harker and Roy.

The last final of the day was the open men’s K4 which is the fastest event over the 1000m. The Arawa crew was unlucky not to break the 3-minute which coach Leigh Barker set them as a target. The young crew paddled through in 3.01 and was 4 seconds ahead of the Poverty Bay crew and a second Arawa crew was third.

Tomorrow is a full day of racing over the 500m distance where we will see Olympic gold medallist Lisa Carrington in action.

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