Gig Harbor Canoe and Kayak Racing team wins nationals, again
For the eighth time in the last nine years, the Gig Harbor Canoe and Kayak Racing Team has won the national championship, coming out on top in the American Canoe Association national championships, this time held in Oklahoma City.
It was a complete and thorough win for the GHCKRT. They topped the podium, scoring 1,380 points in the national championship. In a distant second place was Lanier Canoe and Kayak Club from Georgia, scoring 377.8 total points.
In fact, the GHCKRT (1,380) outscored the second through fifth place team’s total scores combined (1,205.4). The biggest key to their domination came from the sheer numbers the GHCKRT brought from Gig Harbor to Oklahoma City.
“Nationals went great. Our team changed a couple of the ways we do things with our coaching staff and parent volunteers,” said GHCKRT head coach Aaron Huston. “This was a record year as far as how many people we took to nationals; we took 64. Our previous record was either 58 or 60… These kids really poured it out, they killed it. They had just awesome performances. I was really pleased with their performances.”
Across the board, the GHCKRT showed just how dominant they are in the field. They had numerous members take first place in their events in the U14, U16, U18, and the senior (paddlers who are 18 and older) division.
One such standout athlete who looks to have a bright future with the GHCKRT is U14 paddler Adam Behnke. Competing in only the kayaking events, Behnke came in first in six of the eight finals he participated in.
The only events that he didn’t place first in were the K1 (single kayaker) 200 meter and K1 1,000m race. In those events, he places second and third respectfully.
“Obviously, we had the largest team there which means that we had the most opportunity to get points. But we were very diverse, we had kids in every age group, we had canoe and kayak,” Huston said. “We won a lot of races; we won a lot of gold medals… [Behnke] was one of those kids that came through in huge ways. It was pretty cool.”
Behnke proves that the GHCKRT has a bright future ahead of them, but there are older athletes that still have a bit to prove as well. And of course, a couple of those older paddlers in the senior age group are Elena Wolgamot and Jonathan Grady.
Wolgamot in her kayaking events absolutely dominated the field as she finished first in all five finals that she participated in. The most exciting finish Wolgamot had was the K1 200m race where she finished with a time of 43.13 seconds, narrowly defeating Ikaika Racing’s Kali Wilding’s time of 43.89.
Grady also had a dominating showing on the water in his canoe, winning five of his eight finals appearances. His most impressive finish was the C1 1000m race where he put up a time of 4:09.82, almost a full 11 seconds ahead of Washington Canoe Club’s Gavin Ross.
“The senior division is a division that we typically haven’t done as well in. Our paddlers, when they graduate high school, they go off to college and many of them don’t keep paddling,” Huston said. “This year, we won the senior points trophy through a bunch of amazing performances. They came through with clutch performances this year.”
With the success of the GHCKRT on the national scale, it isn’t hard to imagine the level of awareness that they are bringing to not only the sports of canoeing and kayaking but also to their club as well.
Both events are still slated for the Olympic competition for 2024 in Paris and 2028 in Los Angeles. Huston hopes that the combination of the interest in the GHCKRT and the excitement of future Summer Games pushes the city council to embrace the high-level talent in the area and help make practicing for the Olympics more accessible.
“But their performance at nationals and on the world-scale begs the question of what the future is going to look like for the GHCKRT as it relates to future Olympic campaigns,” he said. “I’m hopeful the city council and our organization can work together and get Gig Harbor named as an Olympic training site, which is a possibility if we meet certain criteria. I think that would be really special and something to be proud of.”
This story was originally published September 14, 2021 at 11:38 AM.