FRANCE--Paddlers Lidwien Weitenberg and Stuart Knaggs are due back on island on Wednesday. The pair represented St. Maarten at the week-long International Canoe Federation’s Ocean Racing World Championship in Saint-Pierre Quiberon, Brittany, in the north-west of France.
Some 230 paddlers from thirty-one nations participated in the world championship race.
Weitenberg and Knaggs participated in both the official world championship 22 kilometre race in open age group category and in the master’s age group race the following day. In the world championship race there were three age categories, U18, U23 and Open. In the master’s event the age groups were every five years.
“It was indeed a very technical race and that the St Maarten team was very proud to compete against the strongest paddlers in the world,” reported Knaggs .
In the World Championship race Weitenberg finished 32nd out of 36 competitors in 2 hours 18:45.02 just 37:15.10 minutes behind the winner and Knaggs, 57th out of 70 in 1 hour 53:42.88 just 25:57.89 minutes behind the winner.
Again bringing St Maarten’s name proudly to the world arena, both local paddlers went on to compete in the Masters category on Thursday, where Weitenberg finished in 2 hours13:25.31 – 10th out of the field of 30 women and 5th in her age category just 9:35.93 minutes behind the winner, who was also the overall lady.
Knaggs finished in 1 hour 58:55.28 which placed him 20th out of 37 finishers, just 11:28.01 minutes behind the winner of his age group, and 79th out of 170 men in the master’s race.
Weitenberg came to the island after hurricane Irma to join The White and Yellow Cross as an occupational therapist. Having never participated in any water sport before, a colleague introduced her to surfski paddling, and in her short paddling career she has participated in several surfski races in Guadeloupe, The Dutch Coast Race in Holland, St. Maarten’s Soualiga Challenge Reloaded and now in this year’s World Championships in France.
This year was the fourth ICF Ocean Racing World Championship. It was first held in 2013in Portugal, then in Tahiti in 2015 and Hong Kong in 2017.
