The Eastern Bay Canoe Club punched above its weight at the 2025 New Zealand Canoe Sprint National Championships, with its paddlers bringing home a fistful of medals.

The competition, held at Lake Karapiro over three days, drew a big field of 15 clubs from across the country and the Eastern Bay, featuring a small team of only six paddlers, placed ninth.

Sisters Piper and Holly Rowland returned with national titles to their name.

Competing in the under-12s, Piper nabbed gold in the K1 200-metre and K1 500m events, and a silver in the K1 100m.

This was only her second time competing at nationals – last year she secured a bronze medal.

“My coach, Gary [Waller], has made my training fun leading up to this event and I found myself enjoying racing as I felt stable,” said Piper.

Competing in the under-18s, Holly powered her way to a gold in the K1 5-kilometre race.

“It was a hard endurance race with four laps and three portages,” said Holly. “I had to dig deep on the fourth lap to get ahead of the other paddlers and that move was enough to secure the win.”

In other successes, Hannah Baxter and Jess Cleghorn teamed up with two North Shore paddlers to secure two bronze medals in the K4 200m and 400m events.  

Dominic Rowland and Evan Faithful, who are 14, teamed up with another small club, Karapiro, for a well-earned fourth spot in the K4 200m and they placed fifth in the K4 500m in the under-16s.

Jess is off to Portugal in July to represent New Zealand at the U23 World’s Sprint Championships.