Match Report: Canoeing

After three days of intense heats and semi-finals, the A division boys team advanced into the finals to face traditional rivals NJC and ACSI, seeking to restore the glory of the previously much-heralded Hwa Chong Canoeing team.

The day kick started with Mervyn Toh racing in the K1 1000m event. Despite the presence of four paddlers from the national team, many of whom are medalists on the regional level, Mervyn fought hard and came in 5th.

In the K4 1000m race, our K4 crew paddled a calculated race, with their afternoon race in mind, coming in 4th, easing past fast starters RJC to come in a second behind ACJC.

Next Daniel Soo and Cao Zhehou started their race in the C2 1000m event. Before long, it was clear that the fight was between PJC, NJC and HCI. The three were still leveled at the 250m mark and the race ended with HCI coming in 3rd, trailing behind PJC by only a slight margin.

The highlight of the morning was the K2 1000m event in which our very own national team talent Samuel Chin and Ho Hin Yang participated. After an explosive start, the pair showed no trouble in holding traditional powerhouse NJC off and the race turned into a duel between HCI and ACSI, another national team pair. However an astounding end burst by the ACSI pair caught HCI off guard and we eventually emerged 2nd in this event.

Shao Fei raced in the first event of the afternoon- the K1 500m event. Once again, HCI triumph over MJC and came in 5th in this extremely difficult race, losing to the 4th placing by a mere 2 seconds.

The fight was on again for Daniel and Zhehou in the C2 500m event. The paired displayed remarkable resilience and their spectacular ending shoot brought them a silver medal, leaving NJC to take the bronze and PJC a split second ahead.

Unfortunately, the fastest race of the afternoon, the K4 500m event, which was incidentally the K4’s stronger event, was marred by rather negligent officiating as the umpires failed to notice the highly conspicuous false start by our own K4 (committed to cope with wind conditions). Reacting very badly to the ensuing confusion (having expected a restart), they still came in agonizingly close to a medal, mere centimeters behind bronze medalist ACJC in one of the closest race in the competition.

Despite dropping crucial points in an expected triumph for Hwa Chong, the last event of the day put our championships prospects beyond doubt with our 2 HCI boats scoring nearly a third of our total points in the K2 500m event. Samuel and Hin Yang showed their intent from the start with a blistering burst and led from start to finish, obtaining the gold medal. The second HCI pair Oon Shui Kun and Mervyn Toh also displayed a brilliant effort, edging over NJC in the final stretch and charged onto the podium with a bronze medal.

With 1 gold, 1 silver, 2 bronze, 1 fourth and 2 fifths, HCI boys teams accumulated 34 points in the team championship and is the 2nd runner up for Canoeing National Schools Championship 2009 with a comfortable lead of approximately 15 points over 3rd runner up SAJC. Considering that a significant proportion of the total points garnered were from the juniors, the 2010 championships should see a continuation of our canoeing team’s decent showing this year.