2010 Victorian Whitewater School Championships – Yarra River
It has been a while since the Yarra River has shown its true flows, but due to recent rains and run off, young Victorian Paddlers last weekend finally had some great water to work with during the Victorian Whitewater Schools championships held in the Warrandyte area. Considering the river level was at its highest (for the event) for 5 years, it is not surprising that some paddlers had never paddled at such levels before. This paved the way for great racing on the weekend and a much smoother ride than in recent history.
The Whitewater championships consist of 2 days of paddling. Day 1 is the Down river racing from Jumping Creek to Warrandyte and Day 2 is the Slalom course with the gates based in and around the bridge at Warrandyte. A fantastic spectacle for the Sunday visitors to the area.
28 schools were represented at the championships coming from as far away as Bendigo and as localised to the Yarra such as Eltham and as small as Apollo Parkways primary school. It was magnificent to see such a broad representation and the Association looks forward to even more school participation in the future.
Olympian Mark Bellofiore, (2 times Slalom Olympian) joined forces with Victoria Milne and Al Anderson to present the medals to the 2010 Victorian champions:
Junior Girls Champion – Eliza Singleton from Bendigo
Junior Boys champion – Chris Fegan from Ivanhoe
Senior Boys Champion – Adam Radjic and
Senior Girls Champions (joint winners) – Kate Ashton and Rebecca Mann.
These results included their performance in both the Slalom and Downriver disciplines showing prowess in endurance, speed and accuracy in negotiating the river and the slalom gates.
Check out below some more of the winners…..
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Do you recognse these faces? These are a few that make slalom paddling possible in Victoria. Make sure you thank them and help them out next time you see them.
Canoeing Victoria would like to thank the tireless volunteers that worked to make the event a great one, especially the Canoeing Victoria Slalom Committee and in particular Ordette Webster who slaved for weeks behind the scenes to ensure all was in order prior to the race. Canoeing Victoria would also like to acknowledge the support of Parks Victoria and the City of Manningham for their on-going support of the event and in particular Canoes Plus and Liquid Life for once again supporting such important grassroot paddling activity and providing some great spot prizes.
