By Tara Vaughan
Year 13
From 14-16 May, NZCT New Zealand Canoe Sprint Championships and Oceania Championships took place at Lake Karapiro. It was originally scheduled for mid-Febuary but had to be rescheduled due to a Covid lockdown.
Due to my success at these championships, I was named in a team of six U-18 girl paddlers in the New Zealand team that was supposed to race at the Asia Pacific Cup in Japan that was originally scheduled to take place in May.
I was also invited to trial for the U-18 NZ Kayak Team which was scheduled to race at the Junior Worlds in Portugal at the start of September. I was successful in making the team, but unfortunately due to Covid we won’t be travellingto Portugal. I’m hoping there might be some other racing – there is talk of a trip to Australia, but we won’t know until nearer the time.
During the champs, girls raced over 200m and 500m distances in K1, K2 and K4 events. People came from clubs all around New Zealand as well as paddlers from the Cook Islands and Samoa, but unfortunately this year the field was much smaller due to the impacts of Covid – with only a handful of heats in each age group gender category. Nevertheless, the under 18 girls’ field was very competitive and it was hard to know who was going to win the race on the start line.
Over the 500m distance, I was quite disappointed with my results in the U-18 K1, but in the K2 our boat managed to win and we came away with a second in the K4 in the final.
Over the 200m distance, I managed to win the U-18 K1 200 and the U-18 K2 200 and my team also came second in the K4 over the 200m distance. We also came second in the Open K4 500.
It was a great experience and I am really pleased to have made the U-18 NZ Kayak Team.