Wow, what an exciting day. Wow, what a long day. But the medal count for paddlers from our area was impressive. The most exciting were the Gold medal for the W12 Master Women 50 and the silver medal W12 Master Women 75. The medals are gorgeous and unusual as the centre triangle rotates.
It takes a huge amount of commitment, time, effort, time away from family, sweat and tears to get to a world competition. It has paid off for Carmel, Lee-Anne and Jaqs with their gold medals and Joyce and Lynette with their silver medals. But you have to put in the mahi to get the results.
And sometimes you put in all the mahi and just get the thrill of racing on the world stage. Our own master women 70 W12 race didn’t quite go as planned. We had a great start and a good strong paddle but were slightly off course. I still came off with a grin on my face for the joy of just being out there.
It is such a privilege to be there to greet our paddlers as they come off the race. The faces say it all.
Loading in from the beach is really difficult. I have to hand it to Linda and Edz (and a very nice Chilean paddler) again for getting us all in the waka. I do have entry bruises as the hulls of the Matahina are high out of the water. Getting out is a matter of jumping off the edge and into water over my head. Not my most favourite thing to do.
Other medals of the day that inspired me were
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.