Australian National Marathon Champs

Anyone on here go to the 2012 National Marathon Champs in NSW in April?

I see that they had Ski and Ocean Ski divisions?

How well were you received and was there much interest from interstate ski competitors?

I went in the Championships in the Long Rec kayak class as i did not have my ski at that stage. There was some interest in the Ski classes.
I will probably compete in the Ski class next year. Plenty of Skis in the PaddleNSW Marathon Series.

Cheers, was just wondering if the interest in paddling ski's in our marathon series was just a WA phenonemon.

Ski paddlers probably make up close to 50% of most of our marathon series races!

Check out this photo of the Division 1 starting grid at one of our races this year.



It seems to date we have only had K1 paddlers go to national champs, I guess because they are competing to go to the international champs where ski paddling isnt recognised.

Was interested to know if any other states were represented at the NSW National champs.

National Champs are in WA in 2013, will be interesting to see if Canoeing WA run ski classes as NSW did.

Yeah there were people from most states there. The WA team looked to be mainly younger up & coming paddlers in hte K1 & K2 classes.

My wife was the official photographer from hte event. Plenty of pics at www.rachellemascord.photomerchant.net

I think I would be the best one to answer this question, Chair for PaddleNSW marathon committee, Technical Director for the Nationals this year and Cheif official for the NSW state titles.

Yes there is a ski division both spec and ocean ski's, we are trying to get more ski's paddling in not only the National & State champs but also there Marathon 9 series we run here in NSW.

We are finding that there are more and more ski's entering our events so yes we will be having a Ocean and Spec ski class next year at the Nationals in WA. I'm also on the Ac marathon committe.

Cheers
Tom

See you tomorrow at Swallow Rock Tom

Cheers Tom, good to know!

Were ski's required to portage in their races this year?

Yeah Grant see you tomorrow, getting close to the end of the season.

AR no they did not have to portage if I remember correctly but this may change next year.

We did get a few people from interstate who participated in the ski section and hopefully we will see the numbers improve.

Cheers
Tom

AR how many competitors do you get to your marathon series and how many rounds.

I would be interested as I am trying to get some marathon camps running, we had one in Sydney last year where we had specific coaches ie Matt Coulter who trained Mick Leverret give some advise as well as specific training for marathon paddling.

If this gets up and running AC are thinking of doing camps in different states.

Cheers
Tom

9 races in the series plus the 2nd day of the State champs weekend where you can back up from Saturday in the doubles or plastics on Sunday.

Not including juniors (guppy class) usually around 80 competitors, builds to around 100 competitors for the last one or two races as those training for the Avon Descent join in.

The series is well complimented by a few marathon type races, some of which attract around 700 competitors.

Classic Paddle (Swan River 12km)
Bay to Beach (17km, starts in river finishes in ocean)
Paddle Challenge (18km Swan River)
City Lights (30km Swan River)

We have a huge plastic ski following over here (the Spirit PRS and Finn Molokai) being the boats of choice for adventure racers and Avon descenters, it helps that they are also made here. There are so many, the big Perth events have a "Long Plastics" class and it is pretty hotly contested.

Cheers AR, I'll be coming over to WA next year to be one of the officials are you competing.

Tom

Hopefully I'll make the grade