Seventeen-year-old Jacqueline Kennedy from Gisborne has made history, winning New Zealand's first junior world championship gold medal in canoe sprint at the ICF Junior & U23 World Championships in Halifax, Canada.
Racing in the early hours of Sunday morning (NZ time), Kennedy came from behind to claim the junior women's K1 500m title in 1:57.35, edging Italy's Anastasia Insabella by just 0.08 seconds. Hungary's Lili Gazdag took bronze in 1:57.87.
It is also New Zealand's first junior K1 medal of any colour.
"I'm ecstatic," Kennedy told the ICF reporter after the race. "I just can't believe it. The competition is so insane and coming from New Zealand and racing against these massive countries like Italy, Czech and Hungary, it just makes it even more special."
She had no idea where she'd finished when she crossed the line. "When I came across the line, I was just proud that I'd finished the race and given it everything. I looked across and saw everyone in my team cheering me on. I didn't even know what place I'd come, and then I found out I'd won. I was just so intensely grateful."
Kennedy spoke warmly about the support she'd carried into the campaign. "My sponsors, local businesses, and the people back home have been such a big part of this journey. I've got so many people to talk to tonight; I don't think I'm going to sleep." She also pointed to the athletes who inspired her: "I've had such amazing idols, like Lisa Carrington and Aimee Fisher, and to be able to represent my country the way they did means so much to me."
Fisher, a two-time Olympian and current women's K1 500m world record holder, is one of only two other New Zealand athletes to have won a junior world championship medal, taking bronze alongside Kim Thompson in the junior women's K2 500m in 2013. Kennedy is now in that company, and she was selected for the open NZ Kayak team for the World Championships in Poland in August earlier this week, though her focus has been firmly on this junior campaign.
The result adds to a strong week for the young New Zealand squad, which has collected five top-nine finishes with two days of racing still to come. The junior women's K4 of Stella Crossan, Alexis Toy, Kennedy, and Taylor Newman placed fourth in the 500m, the best result for a New Zealand K4 crew at a Junior or U23 world championship.
The U23 men's K4 of Dylan Monk, Thomas MacGibbon, Sam Lees, and Reid Clancy finished ninth in the 500m final. Thomas MacGibbon was seventh in the U23 men's K1 200m, and Natasha MacGibbon eighth in the U23 women's K1 1000m A final.
Taylor Newman in the junior women's K1 200m, Stella Crossan and Alexis Toy in the junior women's K2, and Olive Pearce and Madison Garrett in the U23 women's K2 all qualified for their A finals after finishing third in their respective semi-finals on Saturday.
