Waka Ama: Medals a pay off for 'real hard yards'

Tahi Nepia, flanked by his partner Anna Te Rei and mother Tiny McLeod, arrives home to Wanganui yesterday packing silver and bronze from the World Waka Ama Championships in Brazil. Photo/Stuart Munro

MONTHS of hard work and a single focus paid off handsomely for Wanganui athlete Tahi Nepia.

The 53-year-old Ratana man flew back into Wanganui yesterday packing two medals from the World Waka Ama championships in Rio de Janeiro. The silver and bronze medals somehow eased the burden of the 33-hours flight.

Nepia was part of the six-man Auckland-based team "Korowai" that won silver in Senior Men's Masters W6 1000m and bronze in the 500m sprint in Rio.

While Nepia has been into the sport for the past five or six years, he put in the real hard yards in recent months training every weekday in a single rig on the Whanganui River before travelling each weekend to Auckland to train in the six-man outrigger.

The minimum age for senior men masters is 50 and at least two of his Korowai team mates were into their 60s, but they refused to allow age to get in the way of competing at top level in Rio.

"It was pretty tough competition and most of the teams from Tahiti dominated - they were very strong and taught everyone a lesson," Nepia said yesterday. "We had to be focused and put in the training. It made it a bit harder training all week in a single and then adapting to the six-man waka."

Travelling between Auckland and Wanganui each weekend added to the pressure, although two of his teammates cut a track between the city of sails and Whangarei each weekend to train.

Nepia said he relished the experience of competing at the worlds, but his focus would be firmly on the New Zealand nationals at Lake Karapiro in January.

"I'll take a bit of a break first, then focus on the nationals. The next worlds are in two years in Australia and I'm not sure about aiming for that - there's a few projects I'd like to work on here."

Nepia was alluding to potentially setting up a club in Castlecliff and encourage community participation.