Canoeing: Standard excites canoeing selectors

The high standard of competition at the national sprint kayak championships may tempt selectors into naming an expanded New Zealand team to contest upcoming world cup events.

The national selectors - John MacDonald, Gavin Elminger and Ant Roebuck - named a 17-strong high performance squad at the end of the weekend's New Zealand sprint kayak championships at Takapuna's Lake Pupuke.

From that squad, the New Zealand team to compete in world cup events in Poland and Germany in May and June will be named next Monday.

Certainties for that team are Olympic K1 silver medallist Ben Fouhy, who won the K1 1000m and finished second to Steve Ferguson in the K1 500m.

Ferguson and his new K2 partner Mike Walker, who won the 1000m and 500m, should also be named with top women's paddler Katie Pocock.

She notched her eighth consecutive K1 1000m title and teamed up with Erin Taylor to win the K2 500m and 1000m titles.

The question for Pocock is whether she wants to try both events or choose one.

Competing in his first national championships, former Ironman world champion Cory Hutchings won the B final of the K1 500m and was part of the Poverty Bay team that finished second in the K4 1000m.

Canoeing New Zealand chairman Tim Jago said Hutchings' performances were promising.

"If that is what he can do in three months, I'd love to see what he can do in 12 months. If he chooses to continue his development there is every reason to suspect he could be sitting in the national K4 team."

Also earning places in the high performance squad were Poverty Bay's Marty McDowell and Shaun O'Conner - who finished second behind Walker and Ferguson in both K2 events - North Shore's Travis Mitchell and Arawa's Fred Teear. The four will form the basis of a K4 team which will almost certainly compete in the world cup, but a women's four won't.

"The women's K4 will stay at home and train in New Zealand. If we think we have a combination that is working then we'll look at sending them up to the world championships in Hungary in September," Jago said.