Photo: Supplied / University of Auckland
Aotearoa New Zealand's Waka Ama teams have had a successful week at the IVF World Sprint Championships in Hawai'i, reigning in 13 gold medals.
The elite women's team won gold in the V6 and V12 500m sprints at the start of the competition.
Three para athletes - George Thomas, Dale Johnson and Peata Nuku - all won gold in their single 250m sprints.
Gisborne's Horouta won the V12 500 metre sprint in the under 16s category, while its Kaiarahi Toa team won its V6 1500m sprint.
Master paddlers in the over 50s, 60s and 75s category also won gold in both their single and six seated waka races.
The elite women's team coach Sieda Tureia said the group spent around eight months training for the championships.
"The biggest thing that we needed to prepare for is fitness and working under fatigue. Being in competition that is over two days, we have a set amount of races that we need to perform at a high quality given that it is sprints. So being able to repeat those performances as well as extend and improve each time has been a big focus for us," Tureia said.
The training camps would involve the elite women's team training for two hours, three times a day - usually in the weekends.
She said Aotearoa had done well overall.
"We have done better in the past but we have to give respect to that fact that there are many countries that have also spent a lot of time and resources into developing there own elite crews and their own juniors, so that we have some development coming through which is really exciting," Tureia said.
She said Aotearoa has been good at developing the elite paddlers with their succession plan to help them perform at a higher level.
"Countries are catching up but that makes our job a lot more exciting, it kind of encourages us to push a bit more and already start making some plans for the next competition in Singapore," Tureia said.
The racecourse was also a surprise to the team because it was in a bay, so it was more exposed to swells and surf.
"Coming on very tricky and difficult angles so that was a big challenge for us is to kind of wrap our heads around that because here in Aotearoa we race at Lake Karapiro which is a lot more controlled," Tureia said.
She said the change in climate wasn't too hard for the team to adjust to because it had been raining quite a bit.
New Zealand are currently third on the medal table with 30 silver and 14 bronze, while Tahiti is on top with 33 gold.
This year 1873 paddlers from 27 countries are competing at Hilo Bayfront Beach
The final day of competition will take place at Hilo in Hawaii on Saturday.