WAIS athletes Jesse Phillips (Rivervale) and Steve Bird (Mount Pleasant) returned very respectable results from World Cup 3 in Duisburg, Germany over the weekend.
Paddling with different partners in the K2 200m as part of the National coaches’ strategy to find the fastest combination for World Championships, Phillips – paddling with SASI’s Matt Goble made the A Final coming eighth and Bird paddling with QAS athlete Chris Alagich was second in the B final.
The final race off for this new Olympic event at the World Championships in late August will be in Europe in early August. WAIS Head Coach Ramon Andersson said “I haven’t been informed yet which combinations will line up for the race up but I think Jesse and Steve have done all that has been asked of them and shown to be the best Australian 200m crewin Europe building on their Nationals win. I would hope that they are given the opportunity to race off for the spot as a team as that is what we have been working towards all season.”
In another sign of their improving stature in international racing they also paddled the K2 500m event where they recorded a scintillating time of 1:29mins in the semi final to storm into the final. Unfortunately in the final they were not able to produce their heat and semi form and came ninth.
“I think with training specifically for the 200m to back up with three 500m races in the one day proved to be a bit much, however to get 1.29 which was a PB by about 2 -3 seconds was great as only a handful of crews hit this time each season,” Andersson said.
The Australian team had a very strong regatta again with the men’s K4 coming second to Olympic Champions Belorussia, Ken Wallace winning the 500m, Jo Bridgen Jones taking out the overall World Cup points scoreas well as finalists in a number of other events painting a fairly optimistic picture towards Worlds.
Phillips and Bird round out their World Cup tour with an International 200m Sprint Cup in Magdeburg, Germany where they will go head to head with some of the best 200m paddlers in the World, including multiple World Champion Ronnie Rauhe of Germany.
Commencing his European competition schedule this weekend in Italy will be Daniel Bowker (Kingsley) who is racing for the National Emerging team.
On the local front, remaining WAIS paddlers will line up in the State Marathon Championships over 25km at Bayswater.
“Brendon Sarson will be one the main favourites but can expect some stiff opposition from some of the marathon racing specialists. New WAIS scholarship holder Lockie Cooke (Mosman Park) could be a dark house as he has an excellent work capacity and will be quite fast on the portages,” Andersson said.
Michael Baker (Trigg) who has returned home from the Gold Coast will be looking for a solid paddle.
The K2 race on the Sunday will see Sarson and Reece Baker (Marmion) – who is making his return to kayaking racing following shoulder surgery in September – as the favourites, however they could face stiff opposition from Cooke and Brendan Rice, with Michael Baker and Brodie Holmes also in contention.
