Canoeists World Cup dream gets setback

Raising funds to represent the New Zealand senior men's team at the world canoe polo championships in Amsterdam in August has suddenly become an even more arduous task for Wairarapa duo Carl Duncan and Kyzen MacDonald.
The two and their supporters had already worked hard to raise the initial cost per team member of $5000 when the news came through they would have to come up with another $3500 each because of a hitch in travel plans.
Originally their flight costs were going to be met, but that is no longer the case and so it's back on the road trying to entice Wairarapa business houses to support their cause.
Duncan, 23, and MacDonald, 18, remarkably make up almost one-third of the national line-up with seven players in all involved.
Duncan is a former Chanel College student who has been playing canoe polo for 13 years, and who repped for the New Zealand seniors at the Oceania championships last year.
MacDonald at 18 is the "baby" of the current national senior squad, and is in his first year with them. However, in his five years at canoe polo the fomer Makoura College pupil has repped for New Zealand at under-18 and under-21 level, captaining the latter.
Impressive form at two selections trials helped in them being chosen for the worlds in Amsterdam as did being part of a combined Wairarapa and Palmerston North team which won the national league title for the first time just last weekend.
That side competed under the banner of the Wairarapa Canoe Polo Club and the team contained a third player from this region in Robin Russell.
Duncan and MacDonald will actually begin their trip to the 2006 world championships on July 15, with the New Zealand side playing warm-up tournaments in Denmark, Belgium and Holland before the championships themselves get under way.
The last time a New Zealand competed at the worlds they came 13th and the Wairarapa pair, who are currently working in Palmerston North, so as to make training with other national squad members easier, are "very hopeful" of making the top 10 finishers on this occasion, and then breaking into the top eight in 2008.
"You make the top eight and you really are up there with the best?.that's the prime objective now," they said.