Coaches awards

Our kayak, canoe and polo coaches have put forward a number of people for coaches awards this year.

Polo

Matilda Milewska  - has really gone to the next level in polo including international selection

Kate Henry – a major contributor to polo at FCC

Julian Howes  - missed selection but trained hard all winter and a huge support to his fellow polo paddlers

Junior Squad

Ethan Maroun-Clark

Grace Hunter-Meaklim

Both Ethan and Grace are always putting in at training – have developed their skills with tenacity this year.  It was delightful having Grace and other juniors join our rainy paddle to the city recently.

Junior Sprint Squads

Ethan Yang

A committed and improving paddler

Axel Tan

Anthea Tan

For improvement over the year leading to some great performances

Katherine Shen 

Always committed at training

Victorian Marathon Races

On the FCC books, there are awards for “Winter Series” marathon races.  The Winter Series, and our involvement in it, hasn’t completely recovered from COVID but there are still a series of Victorian Races where FCC paddlers compete.

This year, our winners, based on participation in the state's marathon events, are.

Male: Tony Ladson

Female: Anthea Tan

Junior: Tyson Buissink 

Szigeti Medal

This is a significant award with a storied history at FCC – named for Zoli Szigeti, Hungarian Olympian and FCC paddler and coach for many many years.  The award recognises a paddler competing at the highest level.

Bradley Buissink

Bradley has had an outstanding season this year.  He completed at the National Marathon Championships at Encounter Bay in March; was selected in the Australian Marathon team, trained all winter and then completed in Croatia in September in the World Marathon Championships in both the K1 and K2 junior men’s events.  He is at it again right now at the Grand Prix 1 Sprint Championships at West Lakes in Adelaide.  Bradley is also now a coach at FCC and assists coaching our juniors.

Canoe Polo award

Alistair Graham

Ali Graham has had a very strong polo season, being selected in the Australian team, completing at the world championships in China and doing a mountain of work training during the cold winter months leading up to that event.  Ali is a young, talented polo player with a lot of promise.

"Under the Yarra" award

Sarah Alexander

Sarah has made a significant contribution to Polo at FCC with year.  A recent example is her role at the Summer Series #1 of the 24/25 Season which was held at Essendon on the weekend of Nov 30/Dec 1.  Sarah has been a driving force in organising training at FCC in the leadup to the recent world championships in China.  She’s also been very effective at promoting polo on the media over the last several months and I wanted to highlight this promotion as a key part of this award.

President's award

Tony Payne

The President's or Chairman’s award acknowledges the major contribution made by Tony Payne this year which includes:

• Running orientation sessions for new paddlers
• Organising the running Introduction to Kayaking and Beyond Beginner courses. (There have been 18 courses in total, this calendar year).
• Running time trials on the first Sunday of each month, including serenading paddlers home on his harmonica
• Leading Zoli sessions.
• Keeping track of the BJNL challenge results.
• As well as keeping our lawns mowed and always helping out at working bees.

Thank you Tony, please keep up the good work.  But also, if there are others who would like to help Tony, with any of these tasks, please get in touch.

Awards presented by Rowan Doyle on behalf of Tony Ladson, Technical Director.