Another scorching day at Eton Dorney as the action began at the World Sprint Championships 2022. The headline news for Maitahi is that Jan Blythe progressed from her heat into the repechage on Day 2 (Thursday) and is still in with a chance of progressing to the final of the Master 70 Women V1 500m. Her qualification race is at 11.10BST/22.10NZ.
The festivities kicked off on Monday with a blessing of the new canoe fleet and continued yesterday with the opening ceremony, conducted in searing heat. Highlights were a glass shattering rendition of God Save the Queen by an opera singer, a red bus, a town crier and some long speeches. I use the word highlights in it’s broadest possible sense but it was all good fun !
Having watched Jan racing, Krakenz set off for Henley for a couple of practice sessions following a decent coffee break.
As well as watching a bit of the racing before going to Henley we enjoyed a very cool waka blessing ceremony after our session had finished. Paddlesport UK had five new Matahina, all named by different clubs in New Zealand, Australia and Canada. There were some heartfelt speeches, a beautiful waiata from the J19 girls from Arataika and some good looking sausages on the BBQ which we didn’t hang around for. Rather disappointingly Waitrose had run out of cooked chickens (Jeff thought that was their natural condition and seems never to have cooked a fresh one) so we were left to pick up a few lacklustre quiches for dinner. Other than that gastro disaster it was another great day and not too long now until we get on the water for some real competition.
Don’t forget that the Livestream, which also includes some recorded highlights, can be found here.
Its never too early or too late to start paddling waka ama
We always welcome new members to the Maitahi Outrigger Canoe Club.
We have social and racing waka ama crews catering for a wide variety of ages and abilities.