Ben Fouhy World Champion K1 1000m Kayaking New Zealand

Nationals

Ben Fouhy — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 23:25:07 +0000

Nationals went well. Pleased to come away with the K1 1000m, K2 1000m and K1 500m titles. I was also pleased to come 4th in the K1 200 which is my best result over that distance at National level.

Fred Teear leading the K2 1000m

We are now over in Penrith, Sydney Australia preparing for the Oceania Championships which is our last shot at Olympic qualification. Its been a hard road and I am very grateful for the people who have stuck by me and supported me and made it possible for me to continue to train with full commitment with financial support and otherwise. Big thanks to the team at Focus, New Zealand Federation of Athletes, Nelo, Jantex, my family and those who prefer to keep their support private.

You can follow the results at http://oceania.canoe.org.au/

I am racing the K1 1000 on Saturday

National Championships this weekend

Ben Fouhy — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 02:47:12 +0000

Looking forward to racing the National Championships this weekend and I will be using this to build some form for the Oceanias.

Hopefully I have enough top end to get me through for now!

Ultimately though, the Oceanias in two weeks time will be the most important event as these are Olympic Qualifying races for us.

This weekend at the Nationals, I will be racing K1 1000 and K1 500 events as well as both distances in the K2 with Fred Teer. On the last day I will give the K1 200m a go too.

End of an era

Ben Fouhy — Sun, 02 Jan 2011 17:17:22 +0000

It is with great regret that I announce my retirement from competitive Kayaking today.

The sport and the people that I have shared it with have given me so much over the last 15 years of my life – from the first time I ever experienced kayaking at the Blue Lake at the age of seven years old to the next two times I paddled at the ages of 13 and 14 and thought that I was going to drown, and all that followed, I am very grateful. I have achieved far more than I could ever have hoped for.

Before I had ever represented NZ I wrote on a piece of paper three goals: win the World Championship, win an Olympic Gold Medal and set a new world record. I fell short only with a silver medal but achieved the other two outright. Events of the past three months have taught me to learn to live without the elusive Gold.

For now I would just like to say that it is really not how I would like to end my career but there are many circumstances that have accumulated and I have taken a few weeks to reflect before making this decision public. For a variety of reasons I have lost the passion and motivation to continue. Having said that I am looking forward to moving on with my life and onto future challenges and wish Canoe Racing New Zealand and all its athletes the very best.

Some Racing

Ben Fouhy — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 08:14:06 +0000

Over the weekend we had the Blue Lake regatta down in Rotorua. It was a very nice weekend with a good turn out and the weather playing nicely.

Most of us have been training fairly solidly so to break things up with a bit of a road trip and some racing was quite a good thing.

I was pretty happy with the racing and to have my injury at bay gives me some confidence for the next block of training. It was great to see the depth in the sport continuing to improve. A lot of work for most of us to do yet but at least it was respectably paddling with most of the A final paddlers in the 3.30-3.40 range.

As you can see an idyllic setting.

World Rowing Championships in New Zealand

Ben Fouhy — Sat, 06 Nov 2010 19:27:45 +0000

Its been an awesome weekend for New Zealand sport with the New Zealand Rowing team winning ten medals at the World Championships which have been held at Lake Karapiro, Cambridge New Zealand. Three Golds, Three Silvers and Four Bronzes.

By all accounts the organisors have done a stunning job of running the championships. Yesterday morning (Saturday) after our 5km time trial a few of us loaded up our kayaks and headed down to watch the rowing. Amongst the highlights in which there were many we found in particular the mens pairs to be something else – an absolute ball breaker of a race. As psychological as it was physical it came right down to the wire with only .3 of a second over six and a half minutes separating the highly respected British crew and our boys who took the title.

Mens pair Hamish Bond and Eric Murray

The womens pair of Juliette Haigh and Rebecca Scown administered a severe beating to the rest of the world to win by a convincing margin.

In the Womens single Scull Emma Twig from New Zealand won her first World Championship medal to take the bronze with Multiple World Championship title holder and Olympic Bronze medalist Mahe Drysdale taking the Silver after a difficult campaign managing a back injury. Needless to say the atmosphere was something special.

On the way home we pulled over at Mercer and Troy and I enjoyed the Waikato river for our last training session of the week. A very nice way to round out a memorable day.