Congratulations to Dan Moodie for winning his 5th straight NZ Ironman title and Nikki Cox for winning the Ironwoman title. The NZ Surf lifesaving Nationals were held on the weekend at Ohope Beach. My club Westshore went ok, not as good as previous years but it will bounce back! Check out some photos.

Im into my last week here in Penrith and things around here are starting to slow down. The Slovenians and Czechs also leave this week and only a handful of people will be here after this week. The sessions are great with about 15 people in them. That is a whole lot less compared to the crowds seen around Oceania champs. I had a good week of solid training last week, not much else happened, did a bit of window shopping, coffee consumption etc…

It is all happening over here, the flatwater is back!!!! They have opened up all areas for paddling as the water quality has returned to a good standard. I have never seen slalom paddlers so happy to warm up and get on the flatwater… However this only lasted for a few days… Some other people that love flatwater will be turning up this week to race at the Australian Flatwater Championships which are this weekend.. Might pop over for something to do.. Went to the driving range today, then dinner, good times..

Its been rather quiet at home in Penrith as the whole flat has been down in Tasmania for the Australian Team Trails. Robbie J had a good day yesterday winning the C1 and C2. Will also winning the Mens and Jess Fox winning the laddies. These results set Sunday up for a very intense and high pressure days racing. There was a number of options for who could make the team with none guaranteed their spot on the team. Sundays racing looked interesting and this is the Australian Team more info, www.canoe.org.au

K1 Men

Will Forsythe (NSW)

Warwick Draper (VIC)

Lucien Delfour (NSW)

K1 Women

Sarah Grant (VIC)

Jessica Fox (NSW)

Kate Lawrence (NSW)

C2 Men

Kynan Maley (WA) / Rob Jeffery (WA)

C1 Men

Robin Jefffery (WA)

Kynan Maley (WA)

Ethan Hodson (NSW)

C1 Women

Jessica Fox (NSW)

Leanne Guinea (VIC)

Rosalyn Lawrence (NSW)

Well not much has been happening in the last week. A few teams have left, NZ Team, Canada, French, Seb Combot left the house on Tuesday to prepare for his French selection races. I had a good hard week last week and will be taking it a bit easier this week as I have picked up the flu. Much like everyone else…

The flatwater has been out of action for the past week because of some green/blue algue or something bad that is in the water…. Apparently it was caused because the rain water flowed into the lake.. and then the weather was warm… The Whitewater course has however been flowing non stop for a week (must cost them a bit of cash) as they are able to aerate the water and kill the bad bugs..

The Australian Selections are coming up this weekend with everyone heading south to Tasmania.  Good luck to everyone and dont freeze down there….

My time in Australia has been pretty cool learning from other people, cultures and other countries work towards high performance. It seems more and more work is being done around preparation and recovery from training. Therefore they are able to get the most out of training! I have spent a lot of time this week stretching and some stuff around balance.

Some news from other Raiseys Sports Supplements athletes.  Dr Stephen Pritchard won the Oceania Bench Press Championships last weekend with a 270kg bench!… That is quite a bit!!! He has been using some Honey and Whey and he loves it! Good luck for the worlds in Texis! Also Shea might be off to India for hockey but again most sports teams are hesitant to go there due to possible terrorist activity.

Photos on Right from Oceania Championship.. Photos by Ian Mercer

The Oceania Championships is done and dusted for another year with the Italian Stallion Daniel Molmenti taking top honors in the Mens K1. Vavra was second followed by Pierre B of France.  Shot to our French housemate Seb Combolt for making finals and to Edern Le Ruvet for winning the C1 Mens! I had a disappointing day at the river paddling pretty bad. I didnt feel to great going over the first drop and felt like I was paddling uphill for the whole run. Touching a couple of gates didn’t make it any better. Ended up 35th.

Anyway now some more hard work begins and it should be good to get some more training under my belt here in Penrith.

K1 Mens

Me 35th

C2 Men

Higgins/Nicholas 13th

Church/Gibb 16th

K1 Ladies

Luuka Jones 21st

Louise Jull 23rd

C1 Men

Shaun Travers 25th

Shaun Higgins 30th

Today the Oceania Canoe Kayak Championships started with the Qualification race. There is heaps of people racing with large international field with 194 competitors from 19 countries. This caused a long day at the course!! The course is not all that difficult but four out of the six upstreams were on the last straight of the course. This put me in a little bit of a pickle thinking that I should pace the top section and then kick it in for the bottom section. Unfortunately my time was down by a heap by gate 8 and I messed up the double up at the bottom. I was lucky my first run was average I ended up 34th and Qualified for the semi finals on Sunday. However there was some pretty positive things to come out of my racing. I just need to work on consistency and keeping composed.  The other kiwi men had a hard day at the river with Mike and the juniors suffering from penalties and Andrew/Bryden not even being able to race. Andrew suffering from illness. Louise and Luuka qualified for semis and will race with Shaun T tomorrow. For me ill be chilling out drinking coffee and fill in the day before racing Sunday.

K1 Mens Top 40 qualify for semi finals

Aaron Osborne 34th

Callum Gibb 49th

Mike Dawson 50th

Malcom Gibson 64th

Carl Whitehead 69th out of 86

C2 Mens top 20 qualify for semi finals

Ben Gibb/Bradyn Church 16th

Bryden Nicholas/Shaun Higgens 17th out of 20

K1 Ladies Top 30 qualify for semi finals

Louise Jull 21st

Luuka Jones 26th

Jane Nicholas 32nd

Nikki Whitehead 33rd

Ella Nicholas 34th

Kelly Travers 43rd out of 46

C1 Mens Top 30 qualify for semi finals

Shaun Travers 26th

Haven Bellemy 32nd out of 38

The Australian Awards dinner was held a few nights ago, I attended with a bunch of other internationals to cheer on our ANZAC brothers.. Will won best male and Roz best female. It was a nice formal evening with a few laughs too… Today Thomas and the rest some more kiwis arrived for our Oceania training slot. Its great to paddle on the ww with only a few paddlers rather than 30… good times…

Its been raining hard core for the past 3 days which I rather like as temperatures are nice.. Today however I think its the last of the rain as the sun is poking its head out and Im pretty sure its here to stay…

Sydney yes here I am.. My flight was pretty sweet and had no trouble with my boat or my over weight bags… Stink one though for Will and Rob who picked my up at rush hour.. Sorry boys.. Training has been pretty well bellow average though.. I hurt my neck pretty bad and haven’t been able to paddle for the past week.  I have done a few flatwater sessions whilst seeing various physios to try fix me.. I should be back paddling properly in next few days so im looking forward to that!! Penrith doesn’t have that many things to do and with the spare time, so it can be rather boring!! We have been filling in the time lately though with various tasks, fixing gear etc..

There are some pretty good paddlers out here at the moment and heaps sessions going on at the course which is a good thing for that place..There is also the Oceania Championships going on for Flatwater at the moment so there is a few paddlers walking around town! Kayakers are taking over the world!!… Tonight is the Australian Awards dinner, plenty of internationals are going along so it should be a good night!

Im sitting here at Hamilton Airport at 4am ready to get on my flight back to Penrith Australia. I think its going to be a loooong day!! However, I must say Im looking forward to this next block of training and excited to paddle with some awesome paddlers.. I was enjoying myself at Kaituna but it slowly gets boring of the limited WW sections.. Dont get me wrong though its a cool place to hang out!! The more I travel the more I enjoy being home in good old kiwi land!