Teen spirit seizes spot at Olympics

By Hamish Bidwell - The Press | Saturday, 05 July 2008

The assignment was to ring some girl in Germany.

Luuka Jones was her name, a 19-year-old from Tauranga, who had qualified for the Beijing Olympics in the rather obscure sport of white-water kayaking.

"Are there any takers?" Cue, much muttering about busy schedules.

Eventually a volunteer was found and given the task of waking Jones at 7am and enquiring about her life story one that turned out to be fairly impressive.

Having decided last year to head to the British World Class Performance programme's base in Nottingham, not knowing a soul, Jones trained alone, lived alone and travelled to whatever World Cup events she could afford alone.

After having to pay, like any other punter, to use the white-water course in Nottingham, Jones eventually started working there so she could train for free.

Having impressed with her tenacity, the British paddlers took her under their wing this time around, allowing her to train with their group and providing her with somewhere to live. Emboldened by their support, she took to the world cup events with greater gusto this year, culminating in her performance in Slovenia earlier this week when she finished 28th overall, but within the top-16 nations, which qualified her for the Olympic Games.

Not bad for a girl travelling with only a couple of recently arrived New Zealand paddlers and no grasp of the local language, let alone a coach or manager.

Put an All Black in an eastern European country with no money, no army of hangers-on, no-one to tell them when to get up, when to eat, what to wear and see what happens. "Better people make better All Blacks" we're told. Well there's a few that might benefit from a walk in Jones's shoes.

The irony of their comparatively luxurious life isn't lost on her.

"Yeah, it was definitely a huge challenge last year, when I made the decision not to go to university, like my friends, and go to Nottingham and try to give my kayaking a good go," Jones said ahead of this weekend's final world cup series event.

"My goal was to get better and I knew that if I was going to do that, I'd have to find some proper water to train in."

New Zealand does have a white-water course, along the Mangahau River near Shannon, but it doesn't flow year-round. And with this country boasting few paddlers of her ability, Jones found training solo wasn't getting her anywhere. But then Jones doesn't really see obstacles, only challenges. Like the time she hatched an idea for some funding.

She'd heard of a company in Tauranga, 1st Web Design, who were supporting the odd athlete. She told them she'd design her own site, provide biographical information, photos and blogs and all they had to do was keep the thing up and running.

Luukajones.com was born and the teenager was able to ferry herself across Europe and, now, Asia.

"I'm racing in the world cup cup event here in Germany this week and then I go to Spain for the pre-worlds, then back to Nottingham for a couple of weeks of training and then over to China," said Jones, who will be only the second New Zealander to compete in the canoe slalom event at the Olympic Games, following Donald Johnstone's 25th placing at Barcelona in 1992.

"I would say that 2012 (in London) is definitely the Olympics that I'm aiming to do really well in. Obviously I hope to do well in Beijing, but that's really a bonus for me at the moment. It wasn't in the plan last year because I wasn't expecting to have a chance of making it, so it's pretty awesome really.

"The Beijing water is expected to be massive, so it will be a huge case of staying on the ball, because if you slip off line you'll soon be stuck down a hole."

Canoe slalom is a bit like showjumping. There's a time limit in which to finish the course and gates to go through, in much the same way as horse and rider have to leap fences cleanly or incur faults. The differences, however, are a raging current, holes to get sucked down and gates that sometimes have to be negotiated by flipping your boat over and going through upside down.

Just as well then that Jones's boat, held together by duct tape, is soon to be replaced.

"It's a good boat and it turns a lot easier than mine. If I paddled in the one I've got now there might be trouble."