Great day of racing at Lake Pupuke for the AROCA W1 Sprint Trials
A
great sunrise introduced a great day of racing in perfect conditions with a
great job of hosting by the Taniwha OCC Ladies. 150 paddlers merged onto Lake
Pupuke with 50% of these being junior paddlers eagerly striving toward gaining
quota for 2015 Sprint Nationals.
Saturday
saw the Master categories battling the Auckland traffic that saw a 2 hour
journey with the motorway and Harbour bridge being reduced to one lane due to
an accident. Brother and sister Iona and Clayton Wikaira displayed their paddling
skills with both seeding #1 for Master Men and Master Women categories.
Our
Senior Master categories broke water on the Sunday with Karyn Misipeka of
Manukau OCC and Pete Wainui from Taniwha OCC securing top seed for their
division.
Tamaki’s
Jeneva Ben and UP2’s Ihaka Taka-Brown were the Intermediate division winners,
along with Saylor Roi from Kuki’s and Fred Safata of Akarana, for the J16
division.
Moving
up to the older grades, previous AROCA champions Storme Pare of Kuki’s and
Maori Kava Tere of Waitakere OCC remain dominant in the J19 category.
Kuki’s
Natalie Bark and Manukau OCC’s Josh Perese secure the O23 division quota
leading nicely for the big players to make their entrance. Marty McDowell from Akarana and Tari Stowers
of Taniwha claim the Open division top seeds closing nicely the 500m trials and
setting the scene for the 250m Dash.
There is no denial the DASH are exciting, dramatic and fast. AROCA’s J19 Quota go to;
All photos on:
https://www.facebook.com/sugart/media_set?set=a.10203020495183273.1073741870.1531667460&type=1