World Champs overcome illness

WORLD CHAMPIONS: The New Zealand women's masters team on their way to winning gold at the World Rafting Championships this week. Pictured in the NZ boat are (from left) Miriam Odlin, Jen Murray, Alana Whiteman, Roni Nuku, Kimi Chater, and Meta Faber. PHOTO/GARRICK CAMERON

Testing times as vomiting and diarrhoea hit majority of paddlers and river conditions make for tough going

LOCAL PADDLERS had to overcome vomiting and constant illness as well as some tough conditions on their way to winning gold and silver medals at the World Rafting Championships in Indonesia.

Rotorua's Alana Whiteman, who was part of the successful New Zealand women's masters team, which won gold at the world champs this week, has returned home and spoke to the Rotorua Daily Post about the big event. She said it was a lot different to racing in New Zealand and the conditions were very testing.

"It was very different. The river was quite technical, and the water level went up and down every time the rain would come in the afternoon.

"Between 1pm and 3pm each day there would be massive thunder and lightening storms and the river would rise quite dramatically."

She said the water was very dark and brown, which made it hard to read where the rocks were gathered ahead of you.

"We are used to clean-looking water in New Zealand and it is easy to read where things are, but in those stretches of water you would not see the rocks until you were on them or a few metres away.

"So it was definitely a challenge for a lot of Kiwi teams and it was really amazing we all did so well."

She said many paddlers in the New Zealand teams battled constant illness, herself included, which made things trying. She said she even vomited twice before their final race.

"All of our team got sick at the opening ceremony and we spent that afternoon quite sick with vomiting and diarrhoea," she said.

"One guy in the open men's team even had to get up out of bed and race the down river event [on the final day of competition], then went straight back to the medical tent after the race and was put on an IV drip."

She said she wasn't completely sure what made the paddlers sick. "I can't be sure but it could have been from the water quality."

Whiteman said they were rapt to come away with the gold medal in the women's masters division. New Zealand also won gold in the men's masters division and silver in the hotly contested men's open and women's open divisions.

Whiteman said her six-person team all came from waka ama backgrounds and they were a little unsure how they would fare against the other teams.

"A lot of us have been doing waka for a long time and have a lot of endurance and a lot of flat water experience," she said. "Initially with the river being so technical I wasn't sure how we would go.

"But we were coming second every day and that gave us second overall heading into the down river event, which was worth the most points. And because we won that race it dragged us up to first overall. It was incredible."

The bulk of the paddlers in the six teams who travelled to Indonesia are based in Rotorua and the wider Bay of Plenty. Whiteman said they only had one crew member, Roni Nuku (Hawke's Bay), who was from outside of Rotorua.