WAIS Athletes Named for Canoeing World Cup Squad

The National Canoe/Kayak Sprint Championships concluded at the Champion Lakes Regatta Centre in Perth on the weekend with the WAIS squad recording its highest representation ever on the National Senior team for the World Cup tour in May/June with four athletes named.

Pre selected by virtue of her bronze medal in Beijing last year, Lisa Russ (Hilton) was joinedby 2007 team memberReece Baker (Marmion) and debutants Jesse Phillips (Nollamara) and Alana Nicholls (Dianella).

Special note should also be made of Brendan Sarson (Balcatta) who missed out on national selection by one spot in his first ever regatta at this sort of level. Three WAIS athletes, Daniel Bowker (Kingsley), Steve Bird (Mt Pleasant) and Michael Baker (Gold Coast based) were selected in the National Under 23 team that will compete in international regattas in Germany and Poland in June.

Alana Nicholls was the most successful athlete with three gold and three silver medals. Gold was won in the K1 200m, K2 200m with partner Lisa Russand K4 200m with silver in the K1 500m, K2 500m and K4 500m. Most impressive was her paddle in the K1 500m that saw Alana overcome an uncharacteristically slow start to storm home and narrowly miss taking gold off NSWIS athlete Jo Brigden Jones.

Lisa Russ walked away from the Championships with three gold and a silver. Lisa brilliantly stroked both the K4 500m and K4 200m crews to comfortable victories and with partner Alana Nicholls the K2 200m was an easy victory as well.

Given her pre selected status, Lisa did not go into the regatta fully tapered but showed she was on target for Worlds this year with a solid fifth placing in the K1 500m and with the powerful Jo Brigden Jones or Alana Nicholls looming as the likely replacements for the retired Chantal Meek into last year’s Bronze medal winning K4 500m crew, the future looks bright.

In the men’s events Reece Baker made both K1 500m and 1000m finals and produced strong performances in coming sixth and seventh respectively. Most impressive though was his role in the back seat of the winning men’s K4 1000m crew with Luke Morrison (SASI), David Smith (NSWIS), Luke Michael (NSWIS) and his bronze medal winning performance with Brendan Sarson in the K2 1000m narrowly missing out on the silver medal.

Jesse Phillips had his most successful National Championship regatta in K1 by making his first A finals, coming fifth and ninth in 500m and 1000m respectively. In a heart breaking performance, Phillips withSteve Birdhad a brilliant start in the K2 500m leading out for the first 350m before being overtaken by Murray Stewart (NSWIS) and Jacob Clear (QAS). When a top 2 placing looked assured with 100m to go and automatic selection in the national team the pair tired and dramatically were overtaken by three crews in the last 50m. Bird and Phillips did however come second in the K2 200m.

Brendan Sarson showed that he could have a bright future in this sport when he changes his focus from ironman to kayaks by coming eighth in K1 1000m final.

Michael Baker also enjoyed his best ever Nationals with a solid fourth with Chad Alston (SASI) in the K2 1000m and a very good third in the B Final of the K1 1000m.

Also showing enormous potential was Daniel Bowker with a solid seventh place in the B final of the K1 1000m and sixth with Sarson in the K2 500m and seventh with Brendan Rice in the K2 1000m his stand out performances.

He also claimed bronze in the K4 200m and K4 500m with Sarson, Michael Baker and Dane Wilkinson (QAS) and had a comfortable victory in the under 23 K1 1000m

Even though we had some performances below expectations, overall most performed at or above expectations which was fantastic. And to get a record breaking four into the National Senior team was a great result and a good start to the new Olympiad.

Full results can be found at http://www.canoe.org.au/

This week will see most of these athletes line up in the Australian Surf Life Saving Championships at Scarborough Beach. WAIS athletes with the best chance of picking up national medals likely to come from Alana Nicholls, Lisa Russ, Brendan Sarson and Reece Baker or Gold Coast based Rachel Simper. Results and updates can be found at http://www.aussies2009.com/en/default.htm

Ramon Anderson