The women were off to a good start with Luuka Jones and Louise Jull both having smooth first runs. 

Then it was Mike Dawson next up paddling a super efficient first run, putting him in the top 10. Aaron Osborne showed form with no gate touches; a clean time putting him in 15th position after first runs.

Second runs for the Kiwi's however proved how tough the new rules are, letting semi-finals for the entire team slip so easily from their hands. There were just milli-seconds separating the men's field. By the end there was only 3 seconds from 3rd to 40th position in mens; a very competitive field!

The end results saw Luuka Jones in 30th, Louise Jull 32nd, Mike Dawson 22nd and Aaron Osborne 28th. Aaron and Mike were disappointed with their results but also happy at the same time as many top names fell behind them.

Aaron was also happy with his result with only paddling on the river 2 times before racing with Mike and Louise having trained for 5 weeks prior to the season. The team was also optimistic considering they are pretty much the only team without a coach, video support and team officials.

It seems the Kiwi's are improving as the races come and go, providing motivation and determination for training in the weeks ahead.

With no Kiwis are racing tomorrow the team will head towards Germany for World Cup #3. The location for this race is the Olympic venue from 1972. Racing is going to be extremely hard for the Kiwis as most of the Europeans have raced at this venue for the past 20 years. With the improvements so far and the tight racing anything is possible in this sport!

Check out some of the video action - Click here