World Sprint Championships – Day 5

Another scorching day today as the Maitahi paddlers started their club crew campaigns in the six man canoes. There are various progression routes through the heats with some categories requiring you to win your heat to go through automatically, while others allow first, second and/or third to progress by right. Many have a repechage system where fastest losers or lower places get a second bite of the cherry at going through to the next round. What it does mean is that there’s no room for letting up throughout the race as every second could be precious.

 Mars Dempster made it through to the semi-finals of the V1000 Master 50 Women, Taranaki coming first in their heat in a time of 5.57.01.

The other Taranaki crew including Carol Hunter, Tracey Marvin, Linda Heath and with Zoe Horvath in the steerer’s seat made it through the heats and into the quarter finals. They shaved more than a minute (yes folks, a minute) off their previous best time , finishing third in 6.15.84 and had a nervous wait to see if they were amongst the fastest crews and when the news came that they were in there were some big celebrations.

Jan Blythe and her Aratika Master 60 crew V500 turn crew came fourth in their heat and just missed out on a place in the final.

Greg Buck’s Master 60 Ratana Paa crew came in sixth in their heat in the 500m straight race so don’t get through to the next round. The heat has been debilitating here and Greg was still around later in the day to come over and give us some encouragement when we finished our race. The fact that we were all coughing like TB ward patients didn’t seem to put him off. There’s been a great deal of support amongst the Maitahi contingent for everyone from our paddling whanau in Nelson.

In baking heat at the end of the day, Krakenz came second to a German crew in the Master 50 V1000 and go into the repechage for the semi-finals tomorrow with a realistic chance of making it through. Our time of 5.25.79 was the 8th fastest in the heats, so in effect we need to maintain that position to go through. We feel we have a quicker time in us but talk is cheap so we will have to see !

Dinner at Allenby Road tonight is still a mystery but it will need to be something a bit special to make up for the singing chef, Shane Winterton, subjecting us to an endless cacophony of off key singing as he did his preparation. The team debrief is still to come after pudding, when all the sharp cutlery has been put away so hopefully we can learn a few things and put them into place tomorrow.

Thanks from everyone for all the messages of support and getting up at ridiculous hours to watch us paddle. We can feel the aroha from here.