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Home / Bay of Plenty Times / Sport

White-hot Luuka set for Spain

Bay of Plenty Times
14 Apr, 2009 09:00 PM3 mins to read

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The camera will be staying at home when Tauranga's Luuka Jones leaves next month to begin her buildup for the world whitewater slalom championships in Spain.
Jones won her second consecutive national women's K1 title on Kawerau's Tarawera River at the weekend and heads back to Europe more focused than ever after competing at last year's Beijing Olympics.
"I'm approaching this stay in Europe with far more focus than I have in the past," the 20-year-old said.
"Everything is building towards the world champs in September, an event I've never been to before, and I'm not heading to Europe for the experience like perhaps I've done in the past.
"I'm defin itely trying to get my way to the top."
Jones, New Zealand's first female canoe slalom Olympian, won the season's senior ranking trophy as well as her second con secutive women's K1 title at the national championships.
Jones has based herself in Nottingham, England, for the past year but spent the summer training in New Zealand.
Former Tauranga paddler Johann Roozenburg won the men's K1 in a time of 94.34sec, more than a second clear of Australian Olympic paddler Warwick Draper (95.48sec).
Jones has been busy over the past few weeks working out a plan towards the 2012 London Olympics. She will compete in France when she gets to Europe next month before lining up in the women's K1 World Cup series.
She dominated the women's K1 at Kawerau for her second national title, lifting her effort after a lacklustre pre-qualifying on Saturday.
"I wasn't happy with Saturday but I pulled it out on Sunday. To be honest I haven't been particu larly worthy of calling myself national women's champ before last year because there's always been a group of older paddlers better than me but I think last year's win might have cracked the ice."
Jones is part of the Waiariki Institute of Technology's paddling acad emy but gets little in the way of inde pendent finan cial backing to fund her overseas campaign.
"I've yet to put in place a financial plan to go with my four-year (Olympic) plan. We've recently had a meeting with (Government funding agency) SPARC, who made it clear there'd be nothing until someone achieves top 10 at the world champs.
Tauranga's Shaun Higgins won the C1 at the nationals, with the C2 title taken out by junior combination Ben Gibb and Bradyn Church (Tauranga).
The under-18 K1 women's title and junior ranking trophy was won by Jane Nicholas, with K1 under-18 men's honours to Shaun Travers, although Callum Gibb had the fastest K1 junior time and collected the junior ranking trophy.
Tauranga schools have also cleaned up at the national secondary schools championships on Hawke's Bay's Mohaka River.
The top trophies for allround excellence over four disciplines _ K1, C1, downriver sprint and classic _ were won by Tauranga duo Jane Nicholas (the Heather Jull and Lucy Forde trophies) and Ben Gibb (Phil Dooney Cup).
Travers won the K1 senior men, although again the fastest K1 time was posted by Callum Gibb (Tauranga), who is still an under- 16 paddler.
Jane Nicholas won the K1 and C1, with Abby Bastin taking the under-16 girls K1. Ben Gibb and Bradyn Church took out the C2 final, with Ben Gibb winning the senior C1 trophy.
Top schools were Tauranga Boys College (best boys and over all winners) and Tauranga Girls College (best girls).
Tauranga's Malcolm Gibb was elected president of New Zealand whitewater slalom at the sporting body's annual meeting.

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