Western Australian Institute of Sport scholarship holder Reece Baker (Marmion) confirmed he is back in form after recording a comfortable win in the annual Classic Paddle over 14km from Perth to Fremantle over the weekend.
In perfect conditions with anoutgoing tide and an easterly wind providing a tailwind for much of the race, Baker led the 600 participants from start to finish, winning in a time of 58 min 29 sec.
In second place was Lockie (Binjali) Cooke of Mosman Park who underlined his potential in a time of 1:00.25hours holding off Jesse Phillips (Rivervale) by 13 seconds.
Head Coach Ramon Andersson said “It was great to see the WAIS squad perform so well whilst in the middle of a heavy block of training and an event which is one of the main events on the local calendar.”
“Reece was fantastic and really confirmed what I had been saying and I think young Lockie (Binjali) was very gutsy with his placing as he was pretty much by himself the whole way without any assistance from other boats,” Andersson added.
WAIS athlete Steve Bird also paddled a great race and was in actual fact second across the line but was unfortunately disqualified for portaging at the wrong point at Point Walter.
