World Rafting Champs: Kiwis in fight to tame raging river

The raging Kaituna River is providing an ideal backdrop for some of the best white water rafting crews in the world to strut their stuff during the world rafting championships.

The competition has been intense as the New Zealand men's and women's crews look to use their local knowledge to out-paddle opposition teams from around the globe.

The men's and women's masters sprint races lived up to the hype as paddlers matched brute strength and determination against the clock in the time trial event on the Kaituna River yesterday.

The race result accounted for 10 per cent to the overall final points tally.

New Zealand men's masters team member Nick Chater was confident the six-man crew was up to the task as one of the favourites in the championships after the first outing in the sprint race yesterday morning.

"We've never raced a lot of these teams before and we can only back ourselves on the water to win," he said.

The crew had been relatively satisfied after the morning's sprint race, he said.

"It is a difficult stretch of water and very tight, and we had to pick our lines to get maximum momentum from the raft. It is easy to get into clean water and lose speed."

Earlier, the New Zealand women's masters had a close encounter in the sprint race against the experienced Russian women's team.

Team member Sarah Uhl said the local team had improved after each of three races against the European crew during the morning's event.

Russian team member Svetlavana Vlasova said the course had been difficult.

"It is interesting water and the narrow line made it hard to finish consistently with the fast time."

The New Zealand team had been given less than a week to strike up combinations before racing began.

"The racing has been competitive but it also been great off the water," said Mrs Uhl.

"It's been about catching up with old friends in a way and it's been nice to showcase our rivers to paddlers from overseas."

The championships attracted a strong contingent of foreign support crews and media to promote the event in their homeland.

"It's been very good for local businesses to have people flocking to see the racing and enjoying socialising later together."

Racing continued today at Okere Falls with the senior and masters men's and women's Head-to-Head (H2H) events.