Paddlers primed for world champs

What keeps the Bay of Plenty waka ama team paddling for hours on end through rain, hale, ice, snow and stormy waters?
Easy. The 2008 World Outrigger Canoe Sprint Championships.
"It was really freezing over the last weekend," under-19 team member Rangitahi Kawe - who is aged 17 - told the Bay of Plenty Times. "Once there was even snow when we went paddling in Rotorua."
Rangitahi, Napoleon Eketone, 17, Sam Baker, 18, Wiri Hohepa, David Hemi-Horne, 16, and Tainui Wharekura, 16, leave for the US today to compete against 42 countries for the world title. Over nine days - from August 1-9 - they will paddle short and long-distance sprints on Lake Natoma in California.
Rangitahi, Tainui and David are all students at the Aronui Bilingual Unit at Tauranga Boys' College and Napoleon is a former pupil of the school. Sam and Wiri are students at Waikato University in Hamilton, but are originally from Rotorua.
The team came together in February after trials, which many of the club teams across the Bay of Plenty took part in last year.
Rangitahi, Wiri, Napoleon, Sam and Wiri's Rotorua team OCC Encore won the national club competition last year.
"Me, Napoleon and Sam were in the under-16 world crew in 2006," said Rangitahi, who took up waka ama at age 12. "Napoleon and Sam were in the top group - they got a silver in the 1000m sprint and silver in the 500m sprint."
The waka ama world champs are serious business and the Bay team is in to win. Over the past six months the six mates have spent most days out on the water.
"We usually go out for about two hours each time," Rangitahi said. "After school and some mornings and sometimes in the weekend."
Their usual training ground is Sulphur Point and Lake Rotokakahi (Green Lake) in Rotorua.
Rangitahi said the team they'd most like to beat is the Tahitians.
"They're really good, waka ama is like rugby over there." He said the team was excited about going over to the US, a country none of the paddlers had been to before. We're okay at the moment, but we'll probably be pretty nervous when we're out on the water."
The Bay of Plenty team, accompanied by coach George Thomas and manager Helen Messenger, and a team from Northland, will head to San Francisco for a few days before competing in the world champs.