|  Luukajones.com | Media | Articles | New Zealand Herald  Big welcome for solo Kiwi5:00AM Saturday August 02, 2008
By David Leggat and Martin Johnston
Forget sport's grandest international stars; Luuka Jones' biggest thrill in Beijing has been meeting cycling hero Sarah Ulmer.
But the 19-year-old from Tauranga will have her eyes open in what is a first-time Olympic rite of passage - spot the famous face in the athletes' village.
"I haven't seen any yet but I hope to," she said.
Jones was the last New Zealand athlete to qualify for Beijing, in the white-water slalom canoeing.
She was "pretty excited" to meet New Zealand's cycling queen, winner of the 3000m individual pursuit in Athens four years ago.
But the reception she got on arriving in Beijing with her coach Tim Baillee this week was also a treat.
Jones is a solo competitor in a sport with a low profile. Getting the full treatment gave her a buzz.
"When Tim and I walked down to the New Zealand apartments everybody was standing there waiting to welcome us with a haka and I was just blown away," she said yesterday.
Her parents, Rod and Denise Jones, arrive on August 10. Jones qualified for Beijing early last month at an event in Slovenia. She cut it fine, but fulfilling her dream with her parents looking on "will be really cool".
The New Zealand village has been filling up this week as athletes have checked in from around the globe.
First in were the men's football team, who have now headed out to their first match venue, Shenyang, led by captain and Blackburn Rovers star defender Ryan Nelsen.
Nelsen, who is used to the unsentimental ways of professional football, was humbled by his first Olympic experience.
"It didn't really hit home until I felt the aura and camaraderie and the pride of the New Zealand camp," he said. "The environment that's been created is something so special and it brings out what it really means to be a Kiwi."
Other arrivals are the women's football squad, the two Black Sticks hockey squads, weightlifters Mark Spooner and Richie Patterson, and the Tall Ferns basketball squad.
The first New Zealanders in action are the Football Ferns, who play Japan in Qinhuangdao on Wednesday night. The men play China before an expected 80,000 the following night. The Games' opening ceremony is on Friday night.
The New Zealand team's chef de mission, Dave Currie, said the Games village and sporting facilities were all superb. Beijing's air pollution was nothing like the issue it had been built up to be in the international media.
"It's not a pollutant. When you breathe, you don't get a sore throat ... now there's only cars on the road every second day, there must have been 1000 building sites closed down, and they have closed down the worst polluting factories." |  |  Kayaking: Jones left dizzy by monster course 1:07PM Wednesday August 06, 2008
By Daniel Gilhooly
If you've wondered what it's like to be put through a washing machine, just ask New Zealand Olympian Luuka Jones.
A handful of training runs through the brutal kayak slalom course in Shunyi has left Jones dizzy with anticipation about her historic appearance next week.
The first New Zealand woman to compete in the event at an Olympics, Jones was excited enough about coming to Beijing before she had even dipped her paddles in the monster 280m custom-built course.
"It's definitely full on. It's technical and it's also very physical because the water is really big and demanding," Jones told NZPA after a training run yesterday.
"You've always got to be on the ball. I like the course because you have to be able to read the white water and handle it to your advantage."
The U-shaped course enclosed by seating for 3000 people is actually shorter than your typical slalom arena but that's where the design generosity ends.
The most noticeable thing to a layman is that much more of the water is wild and white than clear.
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Paddlers are reduced to rag doll status in some parts yet they are expected to negotiate 25 gates - some upstream - in less than two minutes, all the time conscious that time penalties accrue for touching or missing gates.
It is a giant contrast from the relatively flat course in Nottingham where Jones has been based with the British national team for 15 months.
However, the 20-year-old Tauranga paddler didn't think she would be disadvantaged.
"From all the girls that I've watched, all of them are doing good stuff and not so good stuff," she said.
"The water is so unpredictable, everyone seems to be having a hard time on it at some point.
"It's so easy to miss a gate and get a 50-second penalty so some of the big names could be missing out on the semis, definitely. It's going to come down to the day."
Jones and her British-based coach Tim Baillee only have three more hour-long slots to get things right before the heats on Wednesday next week.
"With so many features here there's a lot to take in but I think we've done quite well. I'm slowly getting there."
Ranked outside the world top 50, she may well be the first of 21 paddlers on the course, with the heat order determined by reverse rankings.
About 16 paddlers will qualify for the semifinals the following day, with 10 to contest the final.
Jones placed 36th overall after seven rounds of World Cup action to earn the sole Oceania Games berth and openly admits the 2012 London Olympics are a more realistic stage for her to challenge the big guns from Europe.
However, she wants to put on a quality performance in front of parents Rod and Denise, who arrive on Sunday.
They had only seen her compete at low-key events in New Zealand, nothing like the threshing machine she will be put through at Shunyi.
"I don't think they have an understanding of how big this race is going to be," she said.
- NZPA | |
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