By JO SEARLE
NOOSA Outrigger Canoe Club teams recently contested the National Sprint Titles at Kawana, and didn’t come away disappointed.
Gold was the main colour of the three-day event.
It was double gold for NOCC’s platinum teams (aged over 70 years), with Di Arbuckle and Jo Terrans, and Roger Arbuckle and Brian Rogers winning gold in their Platinum OC2 250 races.
Brian Rogers and Roger Arbuckle both entered the Platinum Men’s 500m OCI race where Roger won Gold. Brian closely followed Roger across the line but was disqualified for coming in on the wrong side of the flag. Roger Arbuckle also entered the Golden Masters OC1 250m, winning his first heat, but was later pipped by much younger men in the field.
Stacey Phyllis and Pascale Hegarty competed in the Master Women OC2 250m. They took out bronze in the final – both elated as it is was their first OC2 race together, in what was a very close race.
The Master Women’s team – Stacey Phillis, Pascale Hegarty, Raquel Hamnett, Susie Blumentals, Kathleen Gentry and Jane Coveny – went into the OC6 500m final with the fastest heat time, and won silver in the closely contested final.
The Master Mixed team – Stacey Phillis, Pascale Hegarty, Raquel Hamnett, Martin Courtnay, Shane Hegarty and John Goller – contested the 500m final with a field of 20 teams, coming in a respectable fourth.
The Novice Women’s team – Lisa Phelan, Jill Bingham, Angela Pickering, Jen Fraser, Kylie Cirillo and steered by Stacey Phillis – backed up their state sprint win with another gold in the 500m final. They’re enjoying the winning start to their new sport.
Golden Master Team 1 – Bobby Lennox, Ken Mitchell, Brian Rogers, John McAlpin, Craig Harris and Garry Hanlon – won silver in the 1000m OC6 race.
In the same race, Golden Masters Team 2 were just over two seconds behind to win bronze, the team being Bob Hobart, Glen Knoblauch, Lynn Mills, Roger Arbuckle, Des Mabbott and Roger Chaffey.
There were a total of 70 crews disqualified over the three days because of the confusion with the lane configuration on the course, including Marco Rocco who received his first ever disqualification in 22 years of racing.
Just two days before the nationals, Ted Baker, an Adaptive Paddler (AP), was asked to compete in an AP OC2 race.
Tina Standish, a great supporter and coach for the AP group at Mooloolaba, combined with Ted and they competed in their first OC2 race together. They missed out on a placing by a mere few seconds … but who was counting.
NOCC members were all cheering them on for just having the guts to enter.
