The Wairoa Extreme race took place last Sunday rounding out a hard but epic weekend of racing in the bay of plenty. Yet another blue bird day for the event, the Wairoa Extreme is always an awesome day out. The Wairoa attracts a large field of racers for an exciting action-filled race with upsets, drama and carnage in the boaterX down the ‘rollercoaster’ rapid. No race is secure until the final banner has been touched.

Starting off the day in the Time-trial, it was Mike Dawson who backed up his strong performance at the Kaituna the day before dominating the men’s field with a time on 5.08.61, 6 secs faster than Gerd Serrasolses in 2nd place. Louise Jull too was again strong, taking pole position in the women’s field just edging out Martina Wegman (NED) with a time of 5.34.57. Zack Mutton easily headed the Junior category with James Wilkins trailing and Brock Coddington of Taupo in 3rd.

The head to head was always going to be exciting with such a stacked line up of top paddlers in the mix, and the technically challenging roller coaster rapid did not disappoint. Tight and technical racing meant mistakes were easily made and some favourites were forced to an early exit from the draw. But in the end we saw a few of the fastest paddlers in the sport battle it out for supremacy in the finals – Joe Morley vs Mike Dawson in the men’s and Louise Jull vs Martina Wegman in the women.  The Junior BoaterX was incredibly even, and at the end of the round robin draw three paddlers were on equal wins, so time-trial results had to be called on to find the winner.

A huge congratulations goes to Joe Morley (GB) and Louise Jull, 2014 winners of the Open categories and to James Wilkins in his first ever Wairoa Extreme taking the Junior title. Also congratulations to Joe for being the first foreigner ever to take the Wairoa crown, not an easy task.

Here are the long awaited results of the time-trial and boaterX, and a series points update wont be far away either… thanks for your patience.

Cheers,

NZEWW Team.