Over the past week NZ has had the secondary school champs and the national champs. It was some tight and interesting racing with titles being regained and lost by many athletes.
Ben Gibb and I were the course designers at the secondary schools, setting a pretty long course for this type of race, with the fastest time being a 94 by U16 paddler, Finn Butcher. Cole O'connor Stratton took out the U18 K1M title, which was great to see a Boys' College paddler winning it. Robert 'Foxy' Hervey won the Phil Dooney trophy which is awarded to the best overall Under 18 paddler at the event. Congratulations to all these guys.
Video of the people at secondary school champs,
New Zealand Secondary Schools 2011 from Callum Gibb on Vimeo.
The nationals took place on the saturday and sunday which contingents from Australia and Cook Islands. The weather decided to rain after beautiful weather for the SS's. The race went on and was a great course, set by Ian Mercer. The Pre'nationals for me went pretty well, I didn't have the fastest runs, but I was consistent doing two 73 second runs (very short course for day 1). My second run had potential to be faster, when I did a sweep up in gate 10 and hit a rock dropping my edge, the frustrating thing about paddling in Kawerau! Warwick Draper took out the race with a 70.5 clean, ahead of Aaron Osborne and Mike Dawson respectively.
Video of my second run at pre nationals,
Untitled from Callum Gibb on Vimeo.
Nationals was a new day, and the day that counted for the National titles and placings. The course was changed, and made around 15 seconds longer, for run times around the 85 second mark. First runs, I had a clear head of what to do on the course except for one move, gates 13 - 14. My first run was off at 9.15am meaning I didn't have much time to sort out what to do, with demonstration runs commencing at around 8.30am.. I went down the course doing the top fairly nicely, a few errors here and there. I got to gate 13 and struggled to get to the upstream 14 loosing time going low.. From there on, it didn't go well, stopping the boat in all the last three ups, and feeling pretty shattered at the bottom. I wasn't very happy with the run, but looked for improvement on my second run. Results said I had a 2 second penalty, but after an enquiry and protest with Chief Judge, Murray Arnold, I got it off. I was feeling good for second runs, sun had come out and was ready to throw it down. My top was great nailing the moves until I got to the 13 - 14 move.. I went low again and touched the next three gates consecutively.. It was all over for second runs. Luckily it was enough to take the win ahead of Carl Whitehead and Laurence Brown.
Congratulations to Ben Gibb who took out the C1 M and the C2 M with Cole O'Connor Stratton. K1M senior goes to Mike Dawson and K1W senior went to Luuka Jones.
A huge thank you to everyone who helped out at the event with results, organizing, judges and runners (Annette).
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