Ruling over pods irks N.Z. kayaker

Press, 27 September 1988, Page 23

Ruling over pods irks N.Z. kayaker

PA Seoul The single kayaker, Alan Thompson, has criticised canoe authorities for banning the innovative wind deflectors the New Zealanders wanted to use for the Olympics.

The jury of the International Canoe Federation, which ruled the pods out of the competition, was “bloody conservative,” he said yesterday. “At the end of the day I think the jury became very fascist in their approach to everything.” Thompson, the Olympic gold medallist in 1984 who will begin the defence of his title today, said one of the biggest disappointments was “we were totally inside the rules.” “They (the jury) really pushed the constitution of the I.C.F. out of the way altogether. “We may as not have any rules at all really. They’ve stifled innovation unless it comes from one of them.” Thompson said there had been a lot of interest from other leading canoe countries such as Hungary and the Soviet Union in the wind-deflector idea. One Hungarian coach had told him it was “a great innovation, exactly what canoe needs.” Thompson said what really annoyed lan Ferguson, Paul MacDonald and himself was the inconsistency in how boats were inspected for the Olympic regatta. On the first three days

it was fairly lax but then after a new United States boat made of carbon fibre that had cost SUSIOO,OOO to develop was at first rejected things tightened even further. “They never treated the boat control fairly or equally — it was too prone to political interference from the jury and prior to that some countries.” The American, Greg Barton, the reigning world champion, and the Hungarian Ferenc Csipes, are expected to be his major rivals. The defending Ki 500 m world champion, MacDonald, finished second in his heat yesterday to the Hungarian Zsolt Gyulay, a gold medal winner in the K 4 1000 m at the world championships last year. “I’ve been getting seconds and thirds in semi-finals — that’s all I’ll be trying to do is qualify.” For the record MacDonald’s KI 500 m heat was the fastest of the three, Gyulay recording 1 min 41.24 s and MacDonald 1:41.65 ahead of the Soviet champion, Victor Poussev (1:42.30). The strong East German paddler Andreas Staehle won the second heat in 1:44.26 while the third went to the West

German Dirk Joestel in 1:45.64.

It was a different story in the third heat of the K2 500 m where Ferguson and MacDonald looked impressive, closely crossing the line first ahead of West German’s Reiner Scholl and Thomas Pfrang. Again it was the fastest of the three heats, the New Zealanders winning in 1:32.32. The first heat went to Igor Nagaev and Victor Denissov (1:33.20), of the Soviet Union, ahead of the leading Europeans Kay Bluhm and Andre Wohllebe, of East Germany (1:33.66). MacDonald and Ferguson had beaten the East Germans at the last preOlympic regatta at Copenhagen. The, second was won by the Hungarians, Attila Abraham and Ferenc Csipes in 1:32.83. Today apart from Thompson, the pair race again in the K2 1000 m and the K 4 1000 m crew of Grant Bramwell, Stephen Richards, Brent Clode and John MacDonald are up against the odds with the top crews in the world, East Germany, the Soviet Union and Sweden in their heat.