NSW Sprint Championships 2013

The APNHA PNSW Sprint championships were run over the weekend of the 12-13 January, Conditions were hot and mostly quite good, with still or not much wind over much of the weekend. ( I think)  Forecast temperatures of 45c for Saturday did not eventuate. Thanks to the officials and volunteers from PNSW and clubs that put on the event. We were also lucky to have the starting gates in place, mainly because they will be used next week  in the Australian Youth Olympic Festival, so hopefully PNSW did not have to pay the $5000 set up fee! Because of the AYOF and that the AC team was here is Sydney we had some additional very strong paddlers in from interstate to compete and there were some very competitive times, so it was good to see Mitch perform so well in his category, placing in all his events and winning the u/18 500 K2.

This event was a steep learning curve for our new paddlers to how a competion runs and that you always need to check your events on the timetable at the event, no rely on what was printed out the night before, and to make sure you all listen to announcements. Paddling events can run very efficiently and some not so efficiently, but when there are new volunteers and the weather conditions cause changes, everyone must be on the ball. This is not an indoor event with a long history of adminstration that help out. If you feel the event could have been run better, go and help the officials in the tower, on the start line, at marshalling, the sport needs more helpers. Thank you to all the supporters and Brian for his coaching support, Luke for towing the trailer.

We had 11 club members compete, some for the first time with the gates.We saw the return of Emma from a long stint with injury to competiton, great to see you on the water at SIRC again. We had Mitch excelling, Nick and Sam flying in the K2 200, Ryan improving from GP1, Michael having a paddle, Arnold a bit flat and Rhett, Liam and Aaron experiencing their first major event. We hope you all enjoyed the championships and work hard towards GP3 in Sydney and Nationals in Perth. GP2 is in Ngambie, please check with Brian about who/what/where.  

There is a summary of our members results below, I have highlighted your pb’s, apologies if I missed a result, please let me know so I can fix it up, full results can found at the link below.

The medal count for our athletes, who in the majority were competing in the u/18’s, u/16’s and u/14’s.

2 gold, 5 Silver, 10 bronze, what a superb effort from our Juniors.

Congratulations to all the Busters who competed and to your club mates that helped you train hard to get there!