Luuka Jones grabs Olympic kayaking spot

A brilliant world championship paddle by Mike Dawson has been overshadowed by his New Zealand teammate Luuka Jones qualifying for her second Olympics in Slovakia today.

While Dawson nailed his second preliminary run to qualify 10th for tomorrow's semifinals at the Canoe Slalom Worlds in Bratislava, Jones agonisingly missed out, finishing 32nd and just 0.15secs off the top-30 needed to progress.

But her placing, amid a strong field of European paddlers, was enough to qualify her for the London Olympics - the 23-year-old clocked 105.46secs, good enough to be the 14th-fastest nation in the women's division.

The three-time national champion became New Zealand's first female Olympic canoe slalom paddler in Beijing in 2008 and is delighted at getting another Olympic shot.

"It will be hard watching the semifinal tomorrow when I know I should be there but I'm stoked to have qualified for the games and will have a lot of time to plan and have a really good build up," Jones said.

"I just went all out, left nothing behind and had a really sweet run but unfortunately picked up a couple of 2sec by touching gates at the top of the course, which kept me out of the semifinals."

Jones' elevation is also good news for another Tauranga-born paddler, Ella Nicholas, who is now representing the Cook Islands.  The Otago University medical student finished 63rd in the heats, 26secs off the pace, but with Australia and New Zealand both earning spots in London, Nicholas is a strong bet to secure the Oceania spot for the Olympics.

Dawson needs to finish in the top 15 nations to qualify and still has work to do, with paddlers from 23 different countries making the semifinals.

But the 24-year-old made a huge stride towards his goal, after a  faultless second run rocketed him up the leaderboard.

He was three spots outside the semifinal cut after his first run, courtesy of a pair of 2sec penalties, but his second run left him 10th and just 1.5secs behind top qualifier, Germany's Alexander Grimm.

"I never thought it would be that tight here but they set an easy course, with gates in all the worst possible places, which made it a strength-based muscle-man course," Dawson said.  "I was a bit shaky on my first run but my second run was way better. I held it together and was in a good head-space, just trying to stay in the middle of the gate and get the boat moving instead of having to work for it. I'm just really stoked to get the job done and make it this far but getting that Olympic spot on Sunday is going to be just as hard.  I'll get some sleep and rest up and go from there."

Dawson's 89.44sec run was 0.18secs faster than Slovenian star Peter Kauzer, winner of the last world cup round, and 1.5secs better than 2008 Olympic bronze medalist Benjamin Boukpeti (Togo).

Fellow Kiwi Aaron Osborne (Rotorua) also had a dream second run, clocking 93.05secs to leave him agonizingly close to making the semifinals, 0.34secs adrift in 44th.  After a tough year with injury, the other New Zealander in the field, Johann Roozenburg, also had a sharp second run, comfortably inside the top half of the field in 55th after clocking 94.82secs.

Of the other Kiwi women in K1, Te Puke's Nikki Whitehead had a clear second run to finish in 52nd, while Otaki's Louise Jull was 55th after a 115.94sec time.

After the first two days were cancelled due to high winds, organisers have compressed the racing schedule, with New Zealand's three C1 canoe paddlers, Brent Bastin, Ben Gibb and Shaun Higgins, all racing tonight.