New Zealand Selection Races: 1 and 2
For New Zealand’s first two selection races we all cruised down to the Tarawera River slalom course, situated in the town of Kawerau.
Selection No. 1: For race one I felt reasonably relaxed, we had to wait around at the course for ages but eventually had our runs. Both my K1 runs were clean. My first run was unreactive and lacking energy. My second run was a lot more powerful but I lost a bit of time in one of the Ups and at the end of the tight stagger. 1st run= 102 clean. 2nd run= 99 clean. This placed me as 2nd Kiwi, after Luuka who put down a 97 clean. Roz and Kate Lawrence put down some solid runs with fast times of 94sec for Roz and 92sec for Kate. Mike Dawson was the top placed NZ K1M with a time of 83sec. Will was first overall with a 82sec run. C2 was taken out by Brayden and Ben. Mike also won the C1M. Roz ripped up the C1W with a speedy time of 111sec. I did a 131sec in my 2nd run.
Selection No. 2: For race number 2 I was feeling a lot more relaxed. First run I did a 100sec clean. 2nd run I did a 99sec clean. Luuka took out the NZ women with a 96sec, clean run, placing me in 2nd. Kate Lawrence from Australia had the fastest women’s time with 92sec. The fastest K1 Man was Will with 82sec, fastest Kiwi was Aaron with 85sec. C1 Men was taken out by Mike with 97sec. Not sure about C2. My C1 was a bit of a disaster as I had to run straight from the end of my K1 run to do my C1, but all good, there is always next wkd.
Just did a run down Kaituna, awesome and Gnarly Gorges. Heading to Mangahau tonight.