The final day of the NZ Canoe Sprint Championship was a great day with warm balmy tail wind breezes. This is a kayak racers dream day for their 200m races. In the sport of kayak sprinting 200m races are regarded as sprint events with the top competitors covering the distance in 36 seconds.
The first final of the day contained our World Champion over this distance. In the Open Women's race Lisa Carrington pulled out on the field to win by a comfortable margin from Rachel Dodwell and Jamiee Lovett in third. Even with a World Champion in the field the gap between first and ninth is 6 seconds so it is a very competitive and fast race.
Carrington combined with her potential Olympic partner Erin Taylor to win the women's K2 200m from a fast finishing combination of Dodwell and Lovett.
In the Open Men's section the four heats were narrowed down through the semi-finals to produce an aggressive final. Steven Ferguson arose as the victor in this race - he was pushed to a very fast time of 35.8 seconds. Scott Bicknell and Liam O'Loughlin finished 2nd and third in a very close race.
1000m specialist Ben Fouhy proved he was also holding good speed and finished in 4th place. 72 races were raced across a wide range of ages during the day which finished with a fun and spectacular event being the club relay races for the Club Challenge Cup. This was won by Poverty Bay, a club with a very strong contingent of young paddlers in the junior age groups.
They proved their strength by taking out a number of other top prizes over the weekend - the Dooney Cup (top junior club results, ages U12-U19) with 704 points, their closest rivals 400 points behind; the Wicked Cup (top U12 age group); and the Tainui Shield (top Overall Club). North Shore collected the Cooper Shield (top Open and Masters results) with Hamish Legarth from Hawkes Bay winning the Wicked boys cup and Alicia Hoskins from Poverty Bay winning the Wicked girls cup.
This was an immensely successful event for CRNZ with 11 clubs and 180 competitors and rounds off a fantastic domestic season of kayak racing.
The high performance team start the International season with 34 members over 3 age groups heading off to the ICF Oceania Canoe Sprint Championship to compete 2-4 March in Penrith, Sydney.
The Oceania Champs doubles as the Continental qualifying event for the London Olympics providing New Zealand its last chance to gain Olympic seats. New Zealand is aiming to gain 4 more seats to add to the 3 it has already secured.
