A race at the Waka Ama Championships in 2021. Photo: RNZ / Mabel Muller
The Waka Ama National Long Distance Championships have started today in Waitangi with entries in the competition the biggest the country has ever seen.
More than 1000 competitors from 62 clubs across Aotearoa will demonstrate how resilient there are on the water over the next two days.
Those competing include the current long-distance men's champion Tupuria King who also coached Aotearoa's men's elite team at the Waka Ama World Sprint Championships earlier this year in London.
His long-distance championship includes winning 16 kilometres in both the rudder and rudderless races.
King has been paddling since he was seven-years-old, but despite 22 years of being on the water and all his victories, he is not taking this competition lightly.
"There's definitely some younger competition here in New Zealand and abroad that are starting to nip at the heels a little bit. We have our current World's Junior Sprint Champion, who I placed second to at the Worlds in London, who will also be here this weekend too to represent in the long distance racing now too," King said.
His entire whānau have all been waka ama world champions, believing it was more than a sport, but rather a lifestyle.
Training has been almost non-stop where he is out on the water between two-to-three times, six days a week.
The longest break he had was during the first nationwide lockdown back in 2020 when he was forced to have 5 weeks off.
"Prior to that, there was only two weeks of not paddling, so never really had much of an offseason," King said.
He said his mental strategising started long before the race begins.
"Backing yourself, backing the work that you've done in training and always go in open-minded and be ready to tackle any object they may be laid out in front of you. The race may not always go to plan, but be always willing to go to plan-b. Always give 100 percent," King said.
Jas Stevenson, who was part of the Aotearoa Elite Women's team that also won many golds at the World Championships in London, will also be competing in the national long distant 16-kilometre race for the first time.
Training out of Wellington she was confident the wind combined with circuit training from hell for Worlds had made her more resilient.
"At a time we had to do like 100 burpees, 50 push-ups and all these other awful exercises pretty much until the coaches said stop. It was tough because it was physically exhausting and we had been training all day up to that point but the hardest part was not knowing there was an endpoint," Stevenson said.
She was hoping the conditions would be a lot calmer in Waitangi for her individual race.
"Just knowing that my residual fitness will get me there and being able to read the water I think will pay a key part in conserving energy. I'm hoping for steady wind, hopefully not too much side wind and I'm hoping for some tidal changes," Stevenson said.
The length of the races varies from eight to 24 kilometres long.
Waka Ama chief executive Lara Collins said the competition was mentally challenging and would test the paddler's endurance.
"It's like running a marathon or a half marathon with your arms. You're basically paddling for non-stop for two or three hours and with your team so you not only have to focus mentally on yourself and what you're doing but you are paddling in time with six other people," Collins said.