WAIS paddlers kicked off the National Grand Prix regatta series in fine style in Adelaide over the weekend with the highlight being an upset win in the K4 1000m.
Lining up against Olympic Gold Medallist Ken Wallace, World Championship Silver medallist, Olympian Tate Smith and national 200m representative Joel Simpson, the WAIS crew of Brodie Holmes, Reece Baker (Marmion) Brendon Sarson (Innaloo) and Daniel Bowker (Kingsley) paddled a superb race to take the win in 2 min 57.62.
WAIS Head Coach Ramon Andersson said “It was a great paddle, the boys got out well sitting about half a metre back on the Wallace crew during the first half of the race, edging closer to them in the second half until it came down to the last 200m. The boys kicked home hard as did the other crew, however our boys were hungry for the win and edged past in the closing stages to take the win.
In other 1000m events Reece Baker raced a great race to come second behind Wallace with Brendon Sarson third and Daniel Bowker placing ninth in the final. In the K2 1000m Holmes and Bowker paddled a strong race to finish fourth, with Baker and Sarson in sixth.
In the women’s events Libby LeCoultre (Inglewood) came fourth in the K1 and won the K2.
Although the 500m metre races are no longer Olympic events for the men, they were hotly contested with Baker and Holmes coming third and fourth respectively in the K1 behind winner Ken Wallace.
Bowker and Holmes almost pulled off another upset in the K2 500m coming within a tenth of a second of winners Luke Morrison and Matthew Goble from SASI in a fast 1 min 31 seconds.
Libby Le Coultre also showed gains against the top women coming sixth in the K1 500m and third in the K2 500m with partner Ivana Kanyitur from SASI.
Sunday saw the splash and dash of the 200m race with Brodie Holmes capping of a fantastic weekend by coming fifth in the final of the K1 showing that he has got the pace to go with the quick boys. Full results can be found here.
For race highlights and an interview with Ramon Andersson click here.
