Hawke's Bay Olympian Anne Cairns will represent New Zealand at her sixth world whitewater rafting championships next week.
The Havelock North-based firefighter, who represented Samoa in kayaking at the Rio Olympics, will be a member of the New Zealand open women's team at the October 2-9 champs which will be staged on the Yoshinagawa River in Shikoku, Japan. Cairns, 36, will be the only Hawke's Bay member of her six-strong crew and, like the other paddlers who all come from Bay of Plenty, has plenty of whitewater rafting and kayaking, canoe slalom and waka ama on her sporting CV.
Her first world championships were in 2001 when her crew won the world title on the Zambezi River in Africa. They retained the title in 2003 in the Czech Republic, finished third in 2011 in Costa Rica, regained the title in 2013 in New Zealand and finished second in 2015 in Indonesia.
Cairns, who recently returned from winning the Le Aito V1 women's title at the week-long waka ama (va'a) Alo Paopao paddle festival, pointed out her whitewater rafting crew has been able to have several training camps since winning the national title in Murchison in March. Bay of Plenty's Rangitaiki, Kaituna and Tarawera rivers were used for these.
"Whitewater raft racing is quite a big sport throughout Europe and New Zealand has always done well across both men's and women's divisions and throughout the classes, from under-19s through to masters," Cairns explained.