2023 Marathon Series Race 3, Lane Cove – “Spectacular”

Nothing could be more daunting than on the eve of your club marathon event, with all your members poised to deliver a big occasion for 137 paddlers from Clubs all over the State of NSW, BOM decides to call a major weather event right on top of everything.

Lane Cove River Kayakers say they ran all the scenarios and put in place contingency plans and then waited overnight. All the signs for a massive rain dump were there. The temperature plummeted and it gradually got wetter and wetter.

BUT by 5:30am Sunday 30 April, when the gates opened, the anticipated ‘weather event’ had all but dissipated and what dawned were conditions for marathon paddling on the spectacular Lane Cove River that would be hard to beat anytime.

On arrival, there was dedicated parking for competitors adjacent to a well organised kayak marshalling area which made it easy to set up your kayak.

The tempting smells of an early morning breakfast BBQ filled the air and it was impossible to get lost with signage everywhere for race registration, change rooms or boat washing post race, course maps and on-course information.

No problem too, if you were short of any kayak equipment or accessories. APS was on hand to assist.

A brief welcome and all important Acknowledgement to Country also gave the club an opportunity to further highlight important aspects of the course and safety issues for those not familiar with the river even though there were detailed briefing notes including maps available at online registration.

Come time to race, the launching of kayaks by division via the LCRK pontoon was easily and swiftly managed by volunteers in time for each start under the Epping Road bridge. 

If numbers were a little down, the quality of the field across all divisions was all class. Finishing was a closely fought thing across most divisions.

It was great to see a good representation of Juniors across several of the divisions as well as younger juniors competing safely for the first time. We hope to see this grow further as the season progresses.

The event was closed out with LCRK’s new Junior doubles combination presenting the Certificates to divisional winners and place-getters rounding out a successful Marathon event.

Full results available via Webscorer:2023 Marathon #3 – Lane Cove | Race results | Webscorer

An amazing array of photos from the day thanks to Ian Wrenford, Oscar Cahill, Tom Holloway, Orlando Luminere, Monika Branley and Jana Osvold: 2023-04 Marathon #3 – Lane Cove | Flickr Thank you all.

Entries are now available for Race 4, Davistown Saturday 20 May:2023 PaddleNSW Marathon Series | Series registration | Webscorer

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