2012: Match Report: Canoeing Finals

Having spent many days and nights together in the past year training for this day, the Hwa Chong Canoeing Team could hardly wait for their chance to get onto the water and race, to bring glory to the school. It was the morning of the National Inter-schools Canoeing Championships Finals, where paddlers battled it out in individual races to gain points for their schools in the race for the Team Title.

The Hwachong A Div Boys’ team was looking to defend their title from their closest competitors, ACS (I), SAJC, and NJC. ACS (I) in particular was the most dangerous, with breadth and depth in their team, and had a spectacular performance in the prequel to the National Inter-schools, the National Junior Canoeing Championships.

The Girls’ team was facing stiff competition from other schools such as the traditional powerhouses NJC and ACJC who had proven themselves multiple times during previous competitions. With many challenges to overcome, such as being an almost completely newcomer team and having to face strong competitors from other schools, the pressure was on to attain even better results than what we achieved last year.

The competition started off bright and early with the A Div Girls’ K1 1000m. Finalists Kimberlyn Tjipto (12S6D) and Ethanyn Lim (11S7J) were up against experienced paddlers from NJC and rising stars from ACJC. We achieved good results, with Ethanyn placing 2^nd, defeating much more experienced paddlers and Kimberlyn placing a solid 5^th, giving us an encouraging start to the day.

Shortly after that, we had the Boys’ C1 1000m. Our two paddlers Bryan Ong (11S64) and Ou Yiming (12S64) went out to beat ACS (I)’s ace, Ray Peh. Even though they pushed Ray Peh to the brink of exhaustion, our boys finished 2^nd and 3^rd respectively, with high pressure placed on Yiming by NJC’s Seet Qin Han.

Buoyed up by the success in the C1, Marcus Lee (11S65) and Henry Lau (12S60) improved on the winning margin with an identical performance of 2^nd and 3^rd positions in the Boys’ K1 1000m, losing to ACS (I)’s national paddler Brandon Ooi.

But we lost our lead in the next race, when Seah Sheng Hui (11S64), Liu Jia Wei (11S6F), Cheng Li Ke (11A14) and Yang Yi (11A15) got 4^th for the Boys’ K4 1000m, whilst ACS (I)’s crew got a surprise win over SAJC, who got 2^nd. This allowed ACS (I) to tie with us at 21 points apiece. The fight was on.

Meanwhile, the Girls’ K2 1000m was a close battle between boats from NJC and ACJC. Felicia Lee (11S6C) and Kimberlyn did us proud by clinching 1st Placing, having only trained together for a minimal number of trainings in order to concentrate on their solo craft. Vanessa Heng (11S71) and Sarah Yeo’s (12S76) fight against ACJC kept us on the edge of our seats, winning their boat by a tiny margin, placing 3^rd.

Then it was back-to-back-to-back A Div races, starting with the Boys’ C2 1000m. Bryan Tang (11S6C) and Teo Ming Yi (11S6D) had met each other at the end of 2010 when Bryan appealed to transfer from NJC to Hwachong, and the pair trained together for the past 2 seasons and were defending champions for the C2 1000m. But the pressure of being favourites did not faze them and they managed to defend their gold medal, with ACS (I)’s Alexander Craiggs and Goh Yen Hang beating our second boat of Lee Yi Liang (11S6E) and Lim Zheng Jie (11S63), who beat all other competitors to clinch the bronze.

Right after that was the Girl’s K4 1000m event. Frontman Foo Wei Yi (11S7J) led the crew consisting of Janie Anne Hui (11S6C), Charlene Tang (11S7C) and Nicole Cheng (11S7J) to put up a great fight against ACJC and knocked them off the podium, placing 3^rd. Their persistence and tireless efforts training together for only a few weeks paid off, ending the girls’ 1000m events.

And following after them was the Boys’ K2 1000m, where our pairs of Joel Tan (11S6C) and Shaun Tan (12S6D), Ho Canxiang (11S6H) and Lee Leong Hui (12S77) were beat by NJC’s Wong Heng Jin and Pang Ren Hui, but managed to show their individual prowess and teamwork by clinching the remaining medal positions. And the morning session had thus ended for the A Division. At this point, Hwachong Boys were up 41 points to ACS (I)’s 26, and the Girls were in 1^st place with 22 points, NJC having 21 and ACJC with 12.

After a lunch break, the 500m events commenced, in roughly the same order as the morning 1000m races, again starting off with the Girl’s K1 500m race. Our sole paddler in this race, Ethanyn Lim was up against much more experienced paddlers from NJC, having only joined in J1. She lost to NJC paddlers Wang Nanfeng and Michelle Oh, triumphing over ACJC’s Isabel Low, placing a well earned 3^rd.

In the Boys’ C1 500m, with Bryan Ong this time was Jared Choo (12S68). The race played out right down to the wire and Bryan narrowly avoided losing his 2^nd place to Qin Han with a perfectly timed shooting of the bow. Jared challenged many of the paddlers who were older and more experienced than him, but ended up a respectable 5^th.

Next up was the Girl’s K4 500m race, which pitted our crew consisting of Foo Wei Yi, Janie Anne Hui, Charlene Tang and Nicole Cheng, up against the same crews they faced in the earlier 1000m race. The competition was fierce as ACJC was dissatisfied with their previous defeat and rose to the occasion, and despite the best efforts of the team they pulled ahead the very last second, leaving us in 4^th place.

Immediately after the Girls’ K4 we had the Boys’ K1 500m, where Marcus and Henry were up once again against Brandon and the best K paddlers from other schools. They repeated their previous results of 2^nd and 3^rd place, with Henry having a close fight for 3^rd against Wang Wei Liang of SAJC.

Like the K1, the Boys’ C2 500m was pretty much a repeat of the 1000m. Again Bryan and Ming Yi were champions, ACS (I)’s boat 2^nd, and Yi Liang and Zheng Jie placing 3^rd. Fortunately the many extra trainings spent on getting their coordination and technique together paid off for them.

At this point, the lead the girls had built up over the past few races was shrinking, with the next race being the T1 500m race, the pressure was on for Felicia and Melissa Low (11S63) to perform well. Facing down extremely strong paddlers from NJC and ACJC, Felicia gave us a nail biting finish, barely pulling ahead in the last few strokes to defeat ACJC, emerging 4^th while Melissa Low finished with a 6^th placing.

The Boys’ K4 500m race commenced a few moments later. With 4 strong paddlers in each boat, this was the fastest race of the day and the paddlers did not disappoint, providing the audience with an exhilarating race all the way. Our crew of Sheng Hui, Peter Daniel (12S73), Li Ke and Yang Yi narrowly lost the 4^th position to ACJC’s crew, but put up a good fight right down to the last stroke.

With the last race for the Girl’s about to begin, every point gain from it mattered, for it could make all the difference in fighting for the 2^nd placing, behind NJC’s lead in points, defending their title. Vanessa and Sarah gave it their maximum effort and were leading up until the last buoy, when ACJC’s K2 gave a last ditch effort and with that one stroke, snatched the 3^rd position right from under their noses. This combined with the strong performance by their other boat meant that we were behind ACJC by 1 point, making our hopes of getting 2^nd  evaporate.

But it wasn’t over yet.

Tan Ying Hui (12S69) and JC1 newcomer Lee Su Lynn (12S63) never gave up, finishing the race and placing 6^th in the grand finals, giving us that coveted 1 point that placed us on equal standing with ACJC, lifting us from out dire straits. This meant that ACJC and we were tied for 2^nd place on points, and we had to look at the medal tally to determine the outcome.

Before we could accurately determine the Girls’ team result though, we had one last race for the Boys’, the K2 500m. NJC’s pair proved too fast to catch but our crews raced bravely against them, and eventually the pair of Joel and Shaun got 2^nd, while Canxiang and Leonghui emerged 4^th.

By the time they came out of the water, the team was ecstatic. Due to the gold medal clinched by Felicia and Kimberlyn in the K2 1000m, the Girl’s placed 2^nd above ACJC by rule of tie breaker! This was the best result for the Girls’ team for the last 10 years, rewarding the team’s hard work through the year.

With an impressive lead of 78 points against ACS (I)’s 50, our Boys’ team defended the title successfully for the 3^rd year running!

Needless to say, the team was very grateful to the coaches and teachers-in-charge, who have played an enormous role in building up the team. In the team’s debrief following the prize presentation, many mushy but heartfelt thanks were given to Mr Quek Wee Tong, Mr Justin Heng, Coach Tan Wee Jin and Coach Yosep Effendy. The team also wishes to thank our seniors, who have not only come back to train us countless times, but also had laid the foundation for our training by improving the team’s culture and training infrastructure. These people were vital and irreplaceable in our endeavours, and we owe our success to them.

The story of the 2011/12 Hwachong Canoeing team has thus ended. The JC1s and future members of Hwachong Canoeing 2012/13 will build on this success and further improve the culture and performance of the team, while the JC2s will go off to prepare for the next challenge in life, the A-levels. We wish all other CCAs the best of luck in their own competitions and we hope you can bring glory back to Hwachong!

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Presenting to you – The Hwa Chong Canoeing Team 2011-2012 (HCanoe)

Written by,

Marcus Lee and Ethanyn Lim

Canoeing Captains 2011-2012

Tags: Canoeing
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