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(added April 3rd 2006)
Grizzlies White Win Tauranga!
The 10th anniversary of the Tauranga Harbour challenge will go down
as a return to winning ways for the Grizzlies.
After winning the race in 1997, 1998, 1999 and 2002, Grizzlies again
hold the trophy for the Master Mens 26k race in 2006. The crew of
Tim Bruce, Nick Lowes, Marty Fox, Graeme Nell, Pete Houghton and
Rodney Evans stormed home in a time 1.57.11, beating second placed
Manukau who had won the Harbour challenge in 2005 by 31 seconds.
After a steady start to the race, Grizzlies White started to
increase the pressure after being in third for a period. Heading for
the top buoy and still in second with Manukau leading, good boat
speed started to claw back the distance with a tiring Manukau crew.
Catching Manukau with about one k to go to the top mark an arm
wrestled developed with neither crew willing to give in.
Finally after a tense struggling Grizzlies White reached the top
mark first and put the hammer down to try and drop Manukau. Catching
some nice little runners Grizzlies White pulled away by close to 100
metres by the bottom mark/bridge and pushed hard home to secure the
victory.
Crossing the finishing line in first place in the Master Mens and
sixth overall there was a mixture of relief and celebration.
An awesome effort by Grizzlies White!
(photos from Picture NZ click
here)
(Added 28th March 06)
GRIZZLIE GOLD POWER NZ TO MEDAL HAUL AT WORLD SPRINT
CHAMPIONSHIPS!!!
The Grizzlies Gold old boys powered up two successful NZ Senior
Master Teams at the World Championships held at Karapiro last week.
They came away with a bag full of medals and can justifiably claim
that the Grizzlies Gold SMM team are up with the best SMM teams IN
THE WORLD!!!
After a week of fierce racing, the SMM division results brought
GOLD in the 1000m to Team
Kotahitanga, Silver in
the V12 and Silver in
the 500m to Team Tahi and Bronze
to Kotahitanga in the V12.
Team Kotahitanga (TK)contained 4 Grizzlies; John “Boy” Leonard, Mike
“Elvis” Dolan, Chopper Symons and Eddie “ Big Bird” Devries. Francis
Ah Wong and Tom Nathan completed this crew.
Team Tahi TT contained William “ Bunny” Palmer , Ken “Crusher”
Gilbert and ex Grizzlie, Mike “Maybe” Hickson. The other paddlers in
this NZ team were Graeme “Finchy” Finch, Brian Wilson and Pakewa
Watene
First up event was the V12. 500M.
Inexplicably the National selectors chose to pair up Tahi with the
Rangaunu crew from up North and TK with the other Aroca crew which
included Peter Wainui , Tony Rudolph et al..
This occurred despite everyone in Tahi and Kotahitanga agreeing that
the combination with seven present and former Grizzlies had the
goods and the desire to bring home Gold!
The conditions for the straight final were blustery headwinds and
Tahiti won gold, the Tahi/ Rangaunu combination got silver and the
KT/aroca combination secured Bronze.
Chopper Symons best summed it up by observing that “Rangaunu dragged
Tahi down and KT dragged up the Aroca Crew!”. What a pity that the
Grizzlie combination was not allowed to flourish and bring home the
gold for NZ.
But the opportunity for these doughty Grizzlies to show their stuff
was not long in coming!
Gold to Kotahitanga!!
What a thrill to see this team scoop it up in the finals having
pulled off a real Houdini in the heats and semis.
In the heats the Tahitians showed their class with an astonishing
4.44” time. Second qualifier Tahi were 8 seconds slower and went
straight to the finals. KT were forced into the semifinal even
though they had the 4th fastest time but this was to
prove to be a real blessing in disguise.
In the semifinal KT won their heat convincingly but a steering error
( is there any other?) saw them turn on the large flag and they
posted a very slow time finally ending up in lane 9 for the
final.(For reasons best known to the organizers the seedings went
fastest from lane 1 through to slowest in lane 9).
Finals day saw blustery SE wind which created a 12 to 18 inch chop
and strong headwinds for the 1000m. No-one had an easy time of it
but lanes 1 through 3 were particularly badly affected.
Team KT came through these conditions the best and took out the
Gold.. Second placed Tahiti (from lane 1!!) were very, very slick
and Keahou (from the big island of Hawaii) pulled a third place very
narrowly from Tahi who stormed home after three crap turns to be
narrowly beaten into fourth place.
Next up was the 500m heats. Tahiti won their heat as did Tahi and
KT.
The conditions stayed blustery but this time it was a following wind
and the advantage swung to lanes 1- 4.
The final was mighty race and was too close to call coming over the
line.
Tahiti were declared winners ( by bugger all!), Tahi
came second with Rangaunu third.
A shattered Noel Clark from Rangaunu was heard to lament “ Its tough
to put up a 1min 50 time and still come third! – what a hell of a
tough competition!”
It is now recognized nationally that the Grizzlies have the systems,
paddlers and organization to field paddlers who can compete for NZ
at the World level and bring home the goods!
And now all these brave paddlers have to do is survive the club time
trials to be able to win a place in the Grizzlie Gold SMM team for
Tauranga!!
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