The Second Grand Prix of the season was held at the Sydney International Regatta Centre over the weekend with WAIS competitors scoring mixed results.
A full strength New Zealand team along with world class competitors from the US and Italy and all of Australia’s top paddlers made the regatta a very high standard.
WAIS athletes Jesse Phillips (Rivervale) and Steve Bird (Mt Pleasant) paddled an excellent race to finish second in the K2 500m event behind World Championship finalists Murray Stewart and Jacob Clear.
Phillips said, “We were very happy with this result in a personal best time of 1 min 32 seconds, considering we have been focusing on the 200m distance. The result made up for our poor showing the day before in the K2 200m where we had a major wobble at the half way mark when up with the leaders. The wobble almost caused us to fall in and resulted in us coming last in the final which was a major disappointment considering we were targeting this event.”
Phillips and Bird also combined with Brendon Sarson (Karrinyup) and Daniel Bowker (Kingsley) to finish a highly creditable third in a very strong field in the K4 1000m. The crew of Tate Smith, Joel Simpson, Matt Urquhart (QAS) and Murray Stewart (NSWIS) caused an upset when they beat pre-race favourites of Olympic Champion Ken Wallace, World Championship Silver Medallists David Smith and Luke Morrison and World Championship finalist Jacob Clear.
Brendon Sarson also paddled well to finish second in the B final of the K1, effectively ranking him eighth Australian when the Internationals are taken out of the equation. Gold Coast based WAIS scholarship holder Michael Baker was 10th.
Baker also paddled an excellent K2 1000m to be the second placed Australian crew with ailing partner Chad Alston (SASI) after World Championship silver medal winning crew Smith and Morrison.
The race however saw New Zealand crews take the top two places with Steve Ferguson, son of legendary four time Olympic Gold medallist Ian Ferguson and Scott Bicknell scoring an emphatic victory.
Baker said after the event, “It was a very good paddle considering how sick Chad was. I thought he might have to scratch today, but showed plenty of guts to race through with his bad cold and gives us confidence going into Nationals where if fully fit a top twoplacing is a realistic goal which if achieved should get us on the National team for World Cups.”
Baker also had a strong paddle in new World Championship event K1 5000m to finish third behind QAS athletes David Smith and Jacob Clear.
Full results and race footage can be found at http://www.canoe.org.au/.
This weekend will see WAIS athletes racing in the State Canoe Sprint Championships at Champions Lake.
– Ramon Andersson
