A huge thank you to our Elite Coaches – Corrina, Myk, and Richard – for all your hours of dedication, knowledge, and coaching that you have given this campaign for the last 8 months. A huge thank you to your whānau that have no doubt been behind you all, allowing you to dedicate yourselves 110% to this campaign. Congratulations on your team's result we are so happy for you all.  We would also like to thank the managers of these teams Yvonne, Ian, and Jo for all your time and manaaki of these teams throughout the campaign. Leading up to the event, uniform sorting, paddle carrying, etc etc without you guys none of this success could have happened.

A huge thank you to our Elite Women, Men and Para teams for dedicating yourselves to our campaign. Safe to say the results speak volumes to all the training and effort you have put in over the past few months. You can be extremely proud of your efforts. Ngā mihi nunui to you all and enjoy some downtime.

A special shout out to all our age division teams who represented Aotearoa well on and off the water from the J19s to the Master 70’s.

Thank you for wearing the silver fern with pride and for all your hard work leading up to the event.

Thank you to all your team managers, clubs, whānau, and friends who supported you all during this journey.

You all gave it your best and we couldn’t be prouder.

Thank you to all the bodies who have helped put this campaign together.  From the clubs who have lent our crews canoes over the duration of the campaign, the countless boat drivers, coffee gophers, uniform washers – Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!!!

Thanks to Trish, Grant, AOCRA and all the volunteers for all your hard-working leading up to and at the event! The event was world-class and we thoroughly enjoyed our time in Mooloolaba.

All  our teams showed lots of heart, battling it out on the Mooloolaba waters. We must pay a special mention to our J19 Women V6 and Master 70 Women V6 who were all class in their respective categories – securing our two Aotearoa New Zealand Gold Medals.

Some courageous performances during the week, here’s a quick highlights reel:

●       Our Elite Open Women managing to wrangle the Silver from Tahiti – one of the highlights of everyone’s week! The Women stuck to the race plan and just raced their race. Steered by Roni Nuku the women paddled an exceptional race.

●       The Masters 40 Men putting on a strong performance to bring home the silver medal in super-competitive division

●       We must make a special mention to Bryce Irving our Master 40 Men V1. After a tough few weeks leading up to the event, Bryce just missed out on a medal with a sprint finish after 24kms!

●       Our Elite Open Men closing our week with one of the slickest performances we have seen. The team were super calm, composed and executed their race plan well.

●       Our Para whānau, as usual showing us that anything is possible!

●       All our teams and paddlers putting 100 percent on the water and representing Aotearoa NZ so well off the water.

Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou – we hope everyone has arrived home safely (back to the cold) and we hope you get to enjoy some downtime!

Lara and the Area Co-ordination Team