Cairns will keep on paddling
Kayaker will still do it the hard way
Manawatu flat water kayaker Anne Cairns isn’t ruling out another tilt at the Olympics, but has four years of paddling to worry about before then.
The Dannevirke-based Palmerston North firefighter competed for Samoa at the Rio Olympics, but didn’t progress from the heats of the canoe sprints, finishing 25th in the K1 500m and 26th in the K1 200m.
It was her first Olympics after missing out on qualifying for the 2008 Beijing Olympics with the New Zealand K4 crew.
She works full-time, compared with her other competitors who are all full-time athletes, and she has also tried her hand at most other paddle sports, including downriver canoeing, whitewater rafting, and waka ama, but doing it the hard way was ‘‘100 per cent worth it’’.
‘‘I’d totally do it all over again and potentially I may do it all over again depending on the next few years what happens with kayaking and canoeing,’’ she said.
‘‘I’ve got waka ama nationals [next month], rafting worlds are in Japan next year and masters worlds with some crew boats [next year].’’
The 35-year-old said she doesn’t know what the next four years will hold, but if there is an opening at another Olympics she will have a crack.
Cairns got close to her personal best at Rio and while her placings were not what she had hoped for, she was unlucky not to go further.
She got drawn in the hard heats, with those who did well at the world championships in Milan last year earning top seedings.
Her times were better than some of those who qualified for the next round, but they were in the easier heats. It goes on placings in the heat, rather than time because wind conditions can alter times.
She was satisfied with her improvements, but said it will grate her for a while because she knew she could beat those other girls.
‘‘When you look at your time and see you could have easily made it in, not just by points of seconds, but by five seconds.’’
Results aside, she said the whole experience was awesome.
‘‘The spin on it before we left, there was a lot of negative stuff about it. When we got there it never even eventuated. I saw maybe three mosquitoes and they were on the bus.’’
She said the athletes’ village wasn’t completely finished, but talking to people who had gone to other Olympics, it wasn’t that bad.
Water quality had been another problem leading into the games, but that wasn’t as bad as it had been made out either.
‘‘The lake we were racing on, the quality, by the time the Olympics actually started, was as good as places I’ve raced on in Europe. After a bit of rainfall, there was some stuff that flushed into the lake.
‘‘The whole experience for me was pretty awesome being my first Olympics.’’
She said it was the most scenic place she’s paddled, with the Christ the Redeemer statue in the background and was a world away from where she trains at the Hokowhitu Lagoon.
Cairns arrived home last Thursday and was straight back on the water training to prepare for the long-distance waka ama nationals at Mount Maunganui next month.
She will race in a six-women crew, as well as individually.
The crew team won the national title from 2010-14 but haven’t raced together since.