Both fairly new to outrigger paddling, husband and wife team Damien Heather and Ana File-Heather competed at the Gorge Downwind Champs in the United States earlier this month (July 8-13), securing a podium finish.

The couple raced in the Outrigger Canoe 2 with very little experience, and they were pretty stoked with their results, coming second in their age group category of 99 canoes and third overall across the line.

“We are very pleased with our performance racing over 21km against very experienced paddlers,” said Ana. “We couldn’t have asked for a better result.”

With temperatures hitting 41 degrees and the water still super cold, the couple got to have some OC1 surf fun for the first time.

The Gorge Downwind Champs is a week-long festival of downwind paddling held annually in the Columbia River Gorge located one hour from Portland Oregon. The event has been running for 10 years.

In its relatively short existence, the Downwind Champs has become the largest all-downwind paddle race in the world.

This year more than 750 paddlers registered in the event, with bus shuttles running throughout the day to allow paddlers as many downwind runs as they can handle.

“We had the best time ever,” said Ana. “A week of downwind fun ending with a 21km finale race – and by fun I mean you can jump in your canoe and surf down to the shuttle buses, jump on the bus with your canoe, and come back to the starting point and go again, and again, and again.”

“Racing in scenery like that alongside 800+ other paddlers was exhilarating.”

The biggest challenge was securing a canoe. Ana said it was not an easy thing to do, adding they were just so fortunate to have made contacts recently when they became Cook Islands’ canoe dealers in April.

A highlight of the Gorge Champs was the “epic atmosphere”. Ana and Damien are looking forward to returning to the Gorge Champs with more Cook Islands paddlers.

They were inspired to create more international paddling race experiences after participating in the world canoeing races and have been keeping a close eye on interesting international races.

In February this year, the couple raced in the Takapuna Aotearoa Waka Ama event, before applying for the Gorge Downwind Champs.

Ana would like to acknowledge the huge support of the paddling community in Rarotonga.