Ben Fouhy World Champion K1 1000m Kayaking New Zealand

A very good day for the team with Erin Taylor and Steve Ferg racing exceptional finals.

Steve came fourth in a blazing fast time of 1.36.574! Amazingly Adam Van Koerveden made some serious readjustment to the record books setting a new world best time of 1.35.630! Tim Brabants was second and Kenny Wallace 3rd all three of those guys went under the pre exisiting worlds fastest time for K1 500!!!

Erin Taylor made a big step with her first K1 500 World Cup podium with 3rd place in a new pb of 1.50.590. Very exciting for the team to see her hard training get rewarded!

For me it was just the semi final in the morning in which I didnt fire, rather than make the B I decided to back right off to ensure my racing for the regatta was finished without having to race a B Final. I felt this was the best thing to do given that I havnt been feeling in full health and killing myself to make the B Final when I am run down was not going to prove anything. Especially with flights to Australia this week.

Well I never thought I would be so happy with a race where I came 5th!

This afternoon we had the A Final of the K1 1000m. It was a very strong tail wind which made the conditions a little tricky with the waves in the last few hundred meters. I managed to get away with just the one brace stroke!

Adam Van Koeverden of Canada took line honors in a 3.25.725, Tim Brabants of Great Britain was 2nd in 3.26.535, Eirik Veras Larsen of Norway was 3rd in 3.26.977, Ken Wallace in 3.27.661 and I was 5th in 3.28.091 – 2.4 seconds behind the winner which was a step in the right direction after being 4.5 seconds back in Duisburg.

In the 200s Steve Ferg and Erin Taylor both progressed through to the A Final tomorrow.

Steve and Mike had a great K2 1000 to make the podium within 1.1 seconds of the two top French crews. One of them being the 2007 World Champions.

The first day of the World Cup ran relatively smoothly for the team.

I was third in my heat of the K1 1000m to Adam Van Koeverden of Canada and Jernej Zupancic of Slovenia, all of us within .6 of a second of each other.

Then mens K2 of Mike Walker and Steve Ferg won their heat of the K2 1000m comfortably in a time of 3.17.

In the K1 200s Erin Taylor was 3rd as was Steve Ferg.

In the K1 500s Steve and I both progressed through to the 500m semi finals on Sunday comfortably.

The womens 500m heats were postponed until tomorrow morning due to highs wind that came up this afternoon. Incredibly the wind and waves picked up so much that in one of the C1 races only three competitors crossed the line with the rest submerged and swimming home.

Tomorrow we start the third and final world cup of 2008.

The link for the official event website is http://www.wc2008.pl/

This evening we checked the boats to make sure they were the correct weight (12kg for K1) as per the official event scales. I like to keep a buffer of around 100grams so it was nice to be able to take a couple of weights out and still achieve this as my boat gained some weight after some equipment changes after Duisburg.

Also we had an opportunity to practice in the start gates to get a little more familiar with them before racing starts tomorrow.

Below myself coming out of the start gates with our K2 crew of Mike Walker and Steve Ferg to the left of me.

This afternoon the NZ kayak team arrived in Poznan, just a day after the NZ Rowing team had finished a very successful regatta here themselves.

This evening we took a light paddle to loosen up after a day of traveling. With a very strong tail wind the course was feeling fast!

It has been very good to have an extra week between regattas to get on top of things more. Hopefully a new personal best over 2 kilometers will transfer into a much more respectable 1000m result than I was able to deliver in Duisburg.

Today we had the semi finals for the K1 500. I was pleased to make it to the A final just over a second slower than the fastest qualifier.

In the final I had nothing left though and finished 9th. Not a great placing but after an uneasy beginning to my European campaign I am happy with two A finals and not to have slipped from my ranking of 5th from Worlds 07 which has been hard work!

For the next week my priority is to get healthier and once this is achieved get some good quality training in..

Other team results- Erin Taylor was 8th in the A final of the womens K1 500 and Steve Ferg convincingly won the B Final of the mens K1 500.

Today we had the semi finals and finals for the 1000m events.

I progressed from my semi final as the third place getter. This afternoon we had the final in which I was placed 5th 4.5seconds behind World Champion Tim Brabants of Great Britain who won in a 3.28. 2nd Was Eirik Veras Larsen NOR, 3rd Adam Van Koeverden CAN and 4th Ken Wallace AUS. Interestingly the same top 5 as worlds last year.

Erin Taylor was 5th in the A final of the womens K1 1000 and the Mens K2 of Steve Ferg and Mike Walker were 4th in the A final of the K2 1000.

Tomorrow we have the semi finals and finals for the K1 500m.

With no other Kiwis racing on day 3 is was in the hands of Erin Taylor. She had a great race to win the B Final.