MONTHS of hard work and a single focus paid off handsomely for Wanganui athlete Tahi Nepia.
The 53-year-old Ratana man flew back into Wanganui yesterday packing two medals from the World Waka Ama championships in Rio de Janeiro. The silver and bronze medals somehow eased the burden of the 33-hours flight.
Nepia was part of the six-man Auckland-based team "Korowai" that won silver in Senior Men's Masters W6 1000m and bronze in the 500m sprint in Rio.
While Nepia has been into the sport for the past five or six years, he put in the real hard yards in recent months training every weekday in a single rig on the Whanganui River before travelling each weekend to Auckland to train in the six-man outrigger.
The minimum age for senior men masters is 50 and at least two of his Korowai team mates were into their 60s, but they refused to allow age to get in the way of competing at top level in Rio.