Ruby’s lead the way for Maitahi at Sprint Nationals

I am bound to miss someone out of this report as it’s being done from memory, so apologies !

Despite losing stroke Joce Thevanaz to Covid at the last minute and filling in with a North Island dragon boater, Ruby’s brought home two silver medals and qualified for the World Championships in Hilo. Jan Blythe, Carol Hunter, Rongomai Flavell, Penny Molnar and Heather Law showed great levels of fitness, determination and teamwork, particularly in the turns race, to come home second in both races. They also would have taken silver in the W12 but it was a non medal qualifying race for them.

Krakenz 50 also have the opportunity to head to Hilo, having taken bronze in the W12 with Kawakawa and coming home sixth in the 1000m. Steve Ransby, Jason Daughtrey, Evan Hodson, Gary Boaz, Seb Head and Cliff Saxton were up against some stellar opposition but their times were the fastest recorded by a Maitahi male crew.

Seb also made the final of the W1, no mean feat considering the strength of the field.

Hinetahi (now all recovering from Covid) achieved their aim of making the semi-finals. Their performance was again testament to the dedication shown during their training programme. It’s pretty likely that the onset of C19 took some of the wind out of their sails, but they still performed strongly. Any glance at the faces of Fi Lankshear, Julie Marriott, Jody Hughes, Liz Van Beek, Simone Newsham and Suzy Garlick in every photo they posted will tell you how much they enjoyed it.

Other MOCC members went up to represent other clubs – Zoe Horvath, Jeff Neilson and Glenn Hardinge amongst them and Sean Timoney was a regular star on the TV pictures as he was driving the safety boat.

TWOA performed strongly as a whole in crew and individual races with two golds that I know of. The South Island, with Maitahi amongst them, are getting better and faster every year and competing hard with the big North Island clubs. Long may it continue.