Luuka Jones bid for Olympic glory gets underway

Rotorua's Luuka Jones gets her chance to compete on the world stage when she competes in the heats of the women's kayak slalom at the London Olympics early tomorrow morning.

The 23-year-old is one of 21 competitors vying for a top 15 spot to move through to the semifinal.

Jones, who is part of the Waiariki Sports Academy starts sixth in her two runs with both times combining to give each paddler their overall time for the man made course at the Lee Valley White Water Centre.

It is Jones' second Olympics and she will be buoyed her Waiariki Sports Academy team mate Mike Dawson, who qualified for the semifinals in the men's kayak slalom this morning.

Dawson qualified eighth fastest overall in the heats and will compete on Thursday morning (New Zealand time).

Jones first race gets underway about 1.37am (NZ time) and is ranked sixteenth. Her main competition are world number one, Slovakian Jana Dukatova, Spain's Maialen Chourraut (No2) and Austrian Corinna Kuhnle (No3).

The Tauranga born, Jones' second race starts about 3.42am. At 172cm tall and 63kg, the course should suit the adventurous paddler who is studying for a business degree.

Jones has overcome last week's training mishap which saw the talented paddler smashed into a barrier on the Olympic course.

Former sports academy director Jane Borren, who is at the Olympics as Jones co-coach said despite a few scrapes and bruises the paddler hadn't lost any confidence from the incident and was looking forward to racing tomorrow.

Another Rotorua Olympian who will be performing tomorrow is rower Julia Edward.

Edward and rowing partner Louise Ayling came third in their heat last night and will now row in the first repechage tonight at 9.10pm.

Despite a strong start the pair struggled to keep with the Great Britain crew of Sophie Hosking and Katherine Copeland, who powered away to almost a 6 second lead over the Kiwi pair who faded in the last 200m to be third behind Denmark's Anne Lolk Thomsen and Juliane Rasmussen.

The Kiwi pair are the fastest qualifying lightweight double sculls of the 11 racing in the two repechage heats.

 

Rotorua competitors competing over night:

Luuka Jones: canoe slalom (K1) heats race time 14.37pm (local time) 1.37am (NZ time)

Julia Edward/Louise Ayling: rowing (women's lightweight double sculls) repechages race time 10.10am (local time) 9.10pm (NZ time)