MEDIA RELEASE
Thursday, April 28, 2011
A battle ensued when a number of our country’s sporting representatives packed into boats today to compete in the Waka Ama racing for the 2011 Super City Uni Games.
With only three teams competing (Waiariki, AUT University and Auckland University) in this sport it could be assumed that the competition would be lessened. But with several nationally ranked sportspeople in two out of three crews an easy win was far from reality.
Crew members for Waiariki Institute of Technology include Luuka Jones who competed at the Beijing Olympics in the K1 Slalom, Nick Chater; a member of the New Zealand Men’s Rafting Team and Dale Thomas who is the Junior Women’s Long Distance Champion in Waka Ama.
They headed up against AUT and two more top athletes: Phillis Meti who was the 2006 Women’s World Golf Long Drive Champion and Bradley Anderson who won the Open Mens W1 500 at the Waka Ama Sprint Nationals earlier this year.
The racing took place at Lake Pupuke on the North Shore in wet and windy conditions. Waiariki team member, Nick Chater said that the conditions required a good steerer who they found in Dale Thomas.
Steerer for AUT was Jordyn Heather, a Waka Ama competitor with six years of experience behind her. Unfortunately for Auckland, they did not have anyone of adequate experience to steer in the conditions so the role fell to Suger Te Paa, the competition manager for the sport.
Te Paa has been paddling for 12 years and is a member of the Taniwha Waka Ama Club. She said the decision for herself and the club to become involved was because “it was logistical that we could oversee it,” she says.
Te Paa describes Waka Ama’s strengths as having “no limitations of age or size. The competitions allow for family participation,” she says. It’s because of this that she believes Waka Ama to be a “generational sport.”
The teams competed in 3 races: 3km, 500m and 200m with Waiariki winning each. The final race was an extremely close finish between Waiariki and AUT. Fair play was on show when a dispute arrived over the winner. Whilst an official called it as an AUT win, both crews declared victory as belonging to Waiariki seeing them capture all three events.
The Waiariki’s sporting backgrounds didn’t allow them to get over confident prior to the race with Chater saying they “have no idea of the competition.” Yet with only one training session together the team pulled out a clean win.
For Olympian Luuka Jones she found a lot of her skills to be transferrable. One thing that did make a difference was the water. While the choppy waters had other paddlers concerned, Jones is accustomed to white water. “This is calm,” she says.
The Super City Uni Games was secured for Auckland by a dedicated local consortium comprising of Auckland University of Technology (AUT) and AuSM (Auckland Student Movement at AUT) and with the support of University Sport New Zealand, ALAC and the New Zealand Community Trust. Key supporters of this year’s event are: 2 Degrees, Red Bull and Highbrook.
ENDS
For further information, contact:
University Sport New Zealand
Katie Farman, Media Manager, 021 757 861 or This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Or
AUT
Bruce Meyer, Manager of Sport Development, 021 401 647 or This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Or
Anthea McLeary, Communications Manager, 021 22 56 427 or anthea/ This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
