International Canoe Federation

The opening day of the 2010 Oceania Open saw the international debuts of paddlers from Guam, Samoa and the Cook Islands under the ICF's Development Programme. Young Rishan Po Ching, who was born in Auckland but is competing for Samoa in the 200m, 500m and 1000m events at the 2010 Oceania Open, started kayaking after her surf lifesaving coach recommended she take up Canoe Sprint. “That was only a year ago,” she said, “so I’m excited to be here competing and looking to improve. My aim is to compete at the Olympics one day."

Other athletes from the Pacific islands include 14-year-old Cassondra Santos from Guam, she will competing internationally for the first time, having taken up the sport only a year ago. “At the beginning, I kept falling,” she said on Friday, “but I was starting over and over again. I really liked it and my ambition is now to get into the finals for the next Olympic Games.”

Raina Taitingfong, also of Guam, said she was seeing her sport in a new perspective at the Oceania Open. “It's crazy. In Guam we don’t even have a club. We don’t even have a coach – we just taught ourselves,” she went on, “I am actually an outrigger canoeist so I have been paddling since 2006. I started kayaking about six months ago because it looked like fun. I thought it would be a challenge, and it is.” Taitingfong said she was actually too old at 17 for some youth events, but still harboured a desire to go to the World Championships. “That’d be even crazier than this,” she exclaimed, “I'm not used to the conditions here. We don’t have flat water in Guam so we train in the ocean not in freshwater. It is much easier to get back in the boat here if we fall over because we don’t have to go all the way back to shore.”

Josh Utanga, 21, of the Cook Islands was at the World Championships in Canada last year on the ICF (International Canoe Federation) Development Programme. He described the Championships as, “a pretty good experience. They opened my eyes and showed me where the bar was. I realised I have a lot of work to do. The guys in Europe have been doing this stuff since they were seven years old and I am 21 and I only started six months ago. It’s always a game of catch-up for me. I am getting there but I need to find consistency.”

He said he was now aiming towards the London Olympic Games, “But I don't want to go just to make up squad numbers. I want to have a real crack at it. I want to get good enough so that I can mix it up with the big boys in the Olympics,” he said. “My goal is to make an Olympic final. It probably won’t be a final at the next Olympics but maybe the one after that. I don’t find it hard to stay motivated. Striving for my goals is what I wake up for in the morning. There are not many people that get to go to the Olympics. I also want to promote the sport in the Pacific. I think there is a lot of talent in that region but they don’t really get the opportunity to show it.”

Keep up to date with the races with live results, live twitter feed, pictures and footage at www.oceania.canoe.org.au.