Athletes from across the country continued to test themselves on the second day of the 2024 Paddle Australia Canoe Sprint Championships.
With the individual events raced in the morning, focus in the afternoon shifted to the team boats, with the K4’s hitting the water and Mixed K2 events rounding out the day.
Queenslander and Olympic hopeful Noah Havard said it’s been a huge couple of days of racing so far, and it’s been nice to hit the water again with his K4 team mates.
“Riley and I had a huge tussle in the K1 500, he just pipped me on the line, but that’s how we are in the K4 together,” Havard said.
“We’re pushing each other every day at home in training, and then when we come and race we’re still right next to each other.
“This is my second ever Nationals and I’m really enjoying it so far,” he said.
Dual Olympian Riley Fitzsimmons said he’s enjoyed getting to watch the next generation of canoe sprint stars in action.
“It’s always nice to come here and do some pressure free racing, and give back to our junior clubs that we’ve come up through the ranks with,” Fitzsimmons said.
“It’s good to come here and hang out with the juniors, give them a few tips and see how well they’re doing,” he said.
“It’s pretty cool for the juniors, they can come and race someone who might be going to the Olympics in 19 weeks time,” Havard added.
“That’s their pinnacle, and we’re using this as practice before heading into our pinnacle. It’s nice to see so many people out here just for the enjoyment of it,” he said.
In the women’s K2 500, New Zealand’s most successful Olympian Lisa Carrington and team mate Alicia Hoskin crossed the line in first, closely followed by Australia’s Ella Beere and Aly Bull in second, and young guns Kailey Harlen and Natalia Drobot in third.
With selections for the Junior and U23 and Senior World Cups to be finalised following the regatta, Drobot and Harlen said it’s been great to race against some of the world’s best.
“It’s been a lot of fast, fun racing and it’s been so great to be able to race against the best in Australia, especially here when you’ve also got Lisa Carrington and all the big guns – it’s pretty special, we’re very lucky,” Drobot said.
“We both got the opportunity to race at Seniors last year, but I’m still 22 and Nat is 19 so when you say young gun I still feel like we’re really part of that crop,” Harlen added.
“It’s really nice to feel like we’ve had an experience at that senior level and now we can come back, and feel like we can share some of that experience and knowledge with our group and the girls coming through…it’s really exciting,” she said.
South Australia young guns Eva Bruce and Max Gandziuk teamed up to win gold in the Mixed C2 500.
“It’s been lots fun so far, we’ve had lots of good races and really good conditions,” Bruce said.
“I had a few good races in the C1 and then we won in the C2, so we’re pretty happy,” Gandziuk added.
Due to inclement weather, the final races of the day have been postponed. Racing will resume tomorrow for the third day of the competition, from 8am AEDT. For the full schedule – click here
For full results from day two – click here
