CORA Report – by Donna Harrison & Lynda Roberts
2016 IVF World Va’a Sprint Championships
Sunshine Coast, Australia May 8-15, 2016
Team Canada
Congratulations to all Team Canada paddlers, you did us proud with
your awesome attitude and effort. Australia put on a great event and
we’re pretty sure the paddlers made the most of their travelling
adventures.
Canada’s Team included 83 paddlers age 15 to 80! The majority of
paddlers were over 60, which is largely due to cost and time needed to
travel to Australia. The location for 2018 is Tahiti, but hopefully 2020
will be voted for Hawaii so we can increase our total number of
paddlers, specifically the younger age categories and juniors.
Medals Count
Canada won 5 medals. Our first Para-Canoe Gold V1 (250m) from Alison
Downie of Calgary. Two V1 (500m) medals for our Master 70+. John
Roberts, Gold and Stan Machacek with Bronze. Masters 70+ V6 (500m)
Bronze (Brian Neil, John Roberts, Rick Walkey, Stan Machacek, Ole
Christiansen and Otto Erdelsky) and Master 60+ V12 Bronze with Alex
Vandenham, Pat McLellan, Martin Jalkotzy, Roman Matieschyn, Bob Stewart,
Darrel Smith, Stan Machacek, Jim Senior, Doug Kazakoff, Randy Brooks,
Dean Dogherty and John Roberts.
Club Crews vs Elite
Going forward, CORA will review the new format of Elite and Club crews and work towards the promotion of an Elite Crew and Club crews.
Although a time trial is required for V1 and Elite, there may be better ways to time trial for Club crews in regional areas to allow for more training as a crew.
Stay tuned for information regarding World Sprints 2018, Tahiti, June 28-July 5th. Time trials October 2017, dates tbc.
