Kiwis take three of four sprint gold medals on home water

Kiwis take three of four sprint gold medals on home water

New Zealand crews made the most of any home water advantage on the Okere river near Rotorua today to secure three individual gold Sprint medals from the four available at the 2013 World Rafting Championships.

New Zealand's Open Men's crew – which features the Sutton brothers - the Master's Men's crew and the Master's Women's crew all took gold medals in the Sprint - which took in a run of around two and a half minutes through some of the most challenging sections of the Okere River - normally known in rafting and action sports circles as the Kaituna.

Backing up the amazing home performance was the Women's Open crew which took a bronze medal for the Sprint behind Great Britain and Japan.

New Zealand's slick Open Men's crew clocked the fastest time of the day - a blistering 2 minutes 13.81 seconds - to take gold ahead of a delighted Canadian crew and the current overall World Champions Japan. The USA in fourth, Brazil, Great Britain, Russia, Slovenia, the Czech Republic and Chile rounded out the top ten in a highly competitive 21 raft international field.

Behind the Kiwis in the Men's Masters category were silver medal winners the Czech Republic and bronze medallists Japan. In the Women's Masters, New Zealand beat the only other entrant Russia.

The biggest cheer of the day went to the Iranian Men's Open crew in their first world championships rafting event. All of the crew members - Bahrami Behnam, Ghsemi Mohammad, Hasseini Manidreza, Keyvanpoor Milad, Aslani Payam and Esmaeelzade Hossein - have rafting experience, but choice of challenging rivers in Iran is limited to say the least. After a solid if very tentative start, one of their crew was thrown out of the raft and unfortunately sustained a minor shoulder injury. He was fine, but needed further medical evaluation before committing to continuing in the competition on Friday.

Day 1 though, was all about the Sprint. In white water rafting, there are four disciplines - the Sprint, the Head to head, the Slalom and the Down River. Each counts as an individual event, but also contributes a percentage of the overall crew score and it is this final score which determines the Overall World Champions. The Sprint is worth 10%, the Head to Head 20%, the Slalom 30% and the Down River 40% of the final scores.

New Zealand's winning crews today were: Men's Open: Paul Roozendaal, Bernd Sommer, Jamie Sutton, Sam Sutton, Joel Flamank and Tim Pickering. Men's Masters: Nick Chater (Capt), Paul Eames, John Snook, Dai Edwards, Maika Nuku and Marty Hellier. The Women's Master Crew comprises Corina Gage, Kim Chater, Sarah Uhl (Capt), Shona Brett, Melanie Grant and Marie Fornusek.

ENDS

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