Wanganui first for kayaker

BACK AGAIN: Max Brown, Toby Brooke and Aiden Nossiter will be going back to Sydney to compete in the 2015 Australian GP 2 competition. PHOTOS/FILE A_020514WCSMKAYAKERS1

Wanganui kayaker Erica Tanner has created history with her selection in the New Zealand Under 18 Women's team who will compete in the 2015 Australian GP 2 competition in Sydney.

Going with her will be three Wanganui clubmates who have done it all before in Max Brown, Aiden Nossiter and Toby Brooke, although there could possibly be changes to which craft regular K2 team-mates Brown and Nossiter inhabit.

The New Zealand Under 23 and Under 18 crews for the GP were announced this week, coached by Mark Watson, Leigh Baker and Gergely Gyertyanos.

A former national under 16 champion, Tanner's call up makes her the first Wanganui representative in the six-member Under 18 women's team, a source of great pride for club coach Brian Scott.

"She's probably a very underrated team boat paddler," he said.

"She's in the mix with the top junior girls " there's one out there in front, then the next five are quite close and she's in that.

"Sometimes she beats them, sometimes they beat her."

Nossiter, Brown and Brooke teamed with Tim Rowe to represent Wanganui in the K4 1000m at the Blue Lakes regatta in Rotorua two weeks ago, coming runnerup in the final behind the composite crew of Ben Tinnelly, Jasper Bats, Zac Franich and Marty McDowell.

At the first Blue Lakes regatta of the season in October, Brown and teamed with Mana's Kurtis Imrie to win the K2 1000m title, beating McDowell and Scott Bicknell.

Brown started teaming with Imrie, who came fifth in the K1 1000m at the junior world championships, when he moved down to Wellington to attend Victoria University.

Scott said for Sydney it would be up to the selectors if they kept Imrie as a solely K1 competitor and re-teamed Brown with Nossiter as the K2.

"The single and the double are too close together to do well [if Imrie entered both]."

Brown and Nossiter were part of the K4 crew who were 13th at 2014's World Under 23 championships and Scott said the K4 team for Sydney would expect to be very strong again, chosen out of the pool of six paddlers in the team. Once again, Toby Brooke has been selected in the five-man Under 18 men's team, having made his national debut last season. He was in the K4 team which finished seventh in the B Final of the 1000m B Final at the ICF Junior and U23 Canoe Sprint World Championship in Szeged, Hungary on Sunday.

Earlier in the year all four Wanganui kayakers, along with triathlete James Wright, were named in Sport New Zealand's Pathway to Podium programme, designed to foster and assist future Olympians

The next major regatta on the calendar is the national champs in Karapiro in February, doubling as the Oceania Champs.