Racing my first Oceania Championships, we flew to Auckland where the Oceania champs were to be raced. This was the first time that the race had been held here and it was going to be something unique as this was also the first time to Vector Wero for many. The brand new course had only opened a few months prior and was something so different to many other courses i had been to.
Being both modern and full on, this course was incredibly foreign to myself and took a few sessions to get use to. Often feeling like groundhog day going around the symmetrical course, I began to get the hang of things and once i did this course was awesome, despite the poles often being at 45 degrees.
Off the water we stayed at a small farm house 20 minutes up the road from the course and while the house was in the middle of renovations it was a fantastic find as between games of Cludeo, Soccer and feeding the cows this was a perfect place between sessions to stay.
We trained Sunday through to Friday each day getting more and more confident with the moves and features of the course. This was going to be the first of the 2017 Selection events and as such everyone was going to be pushing themselves to get of to a good start in trying to make the team.
Coming up to race day I was pumped to put my weeks work to the test. My heats run was rocky as I was slightly off my lines the whole way down meaning I picked up a collection of gates on my way down. Finishing with 10 secs of penalties, I waited for the results to be published before i got dry, as 5 touches I doubted i had done enough to qualify on first runs. However 10 minutes later i was relieved when I saw that I had made it through to semi finals.
Coming into the semi-finals i looked to improve on my positioning as with both touches and being off line I felt I had plenty I could improve on from the heats. Unfortunately my luck didn’t change and i wasn’t able to improve, finishing my Oceania Champs in 20th.
Kaylen Bassett | Canoe Athlete 