Packed to the rafters on Tully

THE Tully River will host the World White Water Rafting Championship next year.

Up to 45 nations from the International Rafting Federation are expected to attend the event from May13- 20.

Organiser Graham Maifredi from Tully said more than 1000 competitors and support crews were expected to travel to Tully.

He said the 2017 world championship in Japan attracted a crowd of 22,000 over the seven days of competition.

Mr Maifredi, who captained the Australian team that won the world title on the Zambesi River in Africa in 2001, said the event would put North Queensland on the world stage. He said international competitors would fly into Townsville and Cairns enroute to Tully.

“It will be a great thing for the North,” he said. “There will be 1000 competitors plus their supporters and spectators.”

Mr Maifredi, who is an acclaimed rafting judge and guide assessor, is about to leave for Argentina for a rafting conference and to judge an international event. He has already travelled to China and to China- Nepal this year to judge rafting competitions.

The thousands of people expected to attend the Tully championships will be housed in a tent village at the town’s showground and at accommodation around the region.

“There will be enough beds between Mission Beach and Cardwell for everyone,” he said.

Mr Maifredi said he was expecting a total of 70 teams, but said there could be as many as 100.

“Wealthy nations like the US, Japan and New Zealand could each send eight teams. Other countries might send three,” he said.

He said the European countries used to dominate white water rafting, but added that Japan was now among the front runners, along with Brazil which was the current world champion.

Mr Maifredi said that with its rainforest mountains, walking trails, mountain biking, rivers and islands, there was no reason Tully could not be another Queenstown.

He said Queenstown in New Zealand’s South Island was now regarded as one of the world’s great adventure capitals.

“Tully has so much on its doorstep. There’s the Herbert River Gorge, the mountains, the rivers.

“I think it can become another Queenstown.

“It could certainly be the adventure capital of Australia,” he said.

He said the championship would take place in rapids graded from one to five. Grade five rapids on a global scale are regarded as potentially deadly.

He said international rafting experts who had been to the Tully River and seen the slalom course rated it the best in the world.