Brown joins New Zealand's elite
Whanganui's Max Brown on his way to fourth place in the K1 1000m at the Blue Lakes regatta in Rotorua at the weekend.
PHOTO courtesy of Jamie Troughton, Dscribe Media.
New location to bring new focus to training for elite squad.
He had emerged as the pick of Whanganui's strong group of young kayaking exponents and now 21-year-old former WHS student Max Brown is lining up Toyko 2020.
Brown is one of five new faces named in the Canoe Racing NZ high performance squad, following the Blue Lakes regatta in Rotorua at the weekend.
Currently based in Wellington where he is completing his music degree at Victoria University, Brown looked strong on the Blue Lakes, coming fourth in the K1 1000m behind training mate Kurtis Imrie of the Mana club.
Imrie would win all three K1 distances, then team with Brown to take out the K2 1000m.
The pair have formed a strong partnership since Brown headed to the capitial for university, including at the 2016 ICF Under-23 Canoe Sprint World Championships in Belarus where Brown led the K4 team.
A 10-strong women's high performance team was named, spearheaded by multiple Olympic gold medallist Lisa Carrington and the K4 crew who finished fifth in their final at Rio.
The nine-strong men's team will be under new French coach Frederic Loyer and will all move to Auckland in December to train as a group, as well as having access to other support staff for nutrition along with strength and conditioning.
Whanganui-based coach Brian Scott, who trained Brown alongside his long-time K2 partner Aiden Nossiter and other national representatives Toby Brooke and Erica Tanner, is proud that one of them has now broken through to the elite level.
"All you need is one [for future encouragement].
"That's obviously the goal of that squad - Toyko and 2024 - so they're getting access to the high performance arena," Scott said.
"Ultimately, they have to centralise to get the benefit of a team environment."
Bringing the men together, rather than training individually around the country and then meeting up for camps and regattas, should bring a marked improvement.
"The men's programme, we all know there's some work to do," Scott said.
"The girls are showing everyone we can perform on a world stage.
"They want to push these guys along and make them push each other."
Other newcomers to the NZ men's group are Tauranga's Taris Harker and Christchurch's Ben Duffy, although the latter did not compete in Rotorua.
Scott saw Brown at the weekend and felt confident his charge will handle moving to the country's biggest city, saying he was very focused.
Brown is also looking forward to the shift.
"The support system will open up a lot more doors for me," he said.
"Being in Wellington is awesome and Mark Watson helps me out a lot but it takes me half an hour to get to training in the morning and I've been living in cold, damp flats, so I'm keen to get into a better training environment."
Finishing up at Victoria, where he has been studying jazz guitar, Brown was more than happy to just keep his degree as a backup option for now.
"I've chosen kayaking over music at the moment because you can't kayak at the top level when you're 50 but you can still play guitar."
Harker was another strong performer in Rotorua, getting minor podium placings behind the dominant Imrie in the K1.
Of Whanganui's three other standouts, Scott is still hopeful they can join Brown at the top national level.
Nossiter had a rough time being involved in three car accidents over the space of the year, which saw him withdraw from trials at the end of last summer due to not feeling back to his best.
Scott said Nossiter wants to get back in the boat soon.
Brooke has also been under an injury cloud and had to miss Rotorua, while Tanner, who has just moved up to Under 23 level, has the toughest assignment by competing for a spot against the international elite stars in the women's division, which is spearheaded by Carrington.
Scott said Tanner came fourth in the K1 1000m against those very Olympians.
"She was right up there in the 500m as well."
New Zealand high performance squads:
Women: Aimee Fisher, Briar McLeely, Britney Ford*, Caitlin Ryan, Elise Legarth*, Jaimee Lovett, Kayla Imrie, Kim Thompson, Rebecca Cole, Lisa Carrington.
Men: Ben Tinnelly, Benjamin Duffy*, Craig Simpkins, Jaimie Banhidi, Kurtis Imrie, Marty McDowell, Max Brown*, Taris Harker*, William Wilkins.
* = New squad member.
By Jared Smith and Jamie Troughton
Wanganui Chronicle