Our Waka Winners

Well before the rest of Queenstown hustles and bustles to avoid traffic jams and fight road cones to get to work, Wakatipu Waka Ama legend Francie Piacun’s out on Lake Wakatipu enjoying the peaceful still of the morning.

A world Waka Ama champion many times over, Francie, who is part Maori, part Croatian, took up the sport back in 2006 in the Far North.

Now at 73 and still working full-time managing three busy Queenstown art galleries, she’s coaching another generation of Wakatipu Waka Ama champions who are also taking the South Island by storm.

Her 15-year-old Wakatipu High School crew, who only started training with Francie just over a year ago, won everything they entered at a regatta in Te Anau, then again at another regatta in Nelson Lakes – first in every category. This month (December 10 and 11) they won gold in the 500m sprint and silver in the 1000m sprint with three turns at the South Island Regional’s in Christchurch, despite having to manoeuvre the 13m waka to turn inside a 15m-wide lane.

“That’s an amazing accolade for them,” says a proud Francie. Next on their horizon is the Secondary School Nationals in March on Lake Tikitapu, Rotorua, with an ultimate goal to compete in the World Sprints in Hawaii in 2024.

Francie and partner Leon, also a top international Waka Ama paddler, have both recently returned from the World Sprint Championships in London. Francie has competed internationally in Calgary, Queensland, Rio de Janeiro and Tahiti with her crews winning gold and silver in most of them. At 73 she’s still training early every morning for an hour on the lake in preparation for the next World Sprint Championships in Hawaii.

Francie won silver in the singles sprint at this month’s Regional Championships and Leon’s men’s crew placed first in both events, with two new paddlers making finals and one qualifying for the national championships.
“We’re the smallest club in the South Island but whenever we turn up at regattas we always do well,” says Francie.

“Waka Ama is very popular with 34 countries competing in the world championships, from Japan, the United States and Canada to Hawaii, England, France and Germany,” she says. Known internationally as outrigger canoeing, crews race fibreglass canoes, with some now racing lighter carbon fibre canoes, paddling forwards using a blade – alternating 16 strokes one side then 16 on the other.

Crews compete as six or singles and the girls’ crew will be progressing to single events next year (2023). They will compete in the Regional Championships in Christchurch again next year and in January 2024 head to the National Championships at Lake Karapiro where they’ll need to qualify to compete at the World Championships in Hawaii.

Francie and Leon, who’s also won multiple gold and silver international medals and coaches the successful local men’s crew, split the local coaching duties. Francie has also brought New Zealand’s top Waka Ama coach Corrina Gage to Queenstown to coach her teenage girls’ crew during the past year. They’re all on the water year-round, two nights a week with some gym strengthening thrown in. “I’m now coaching a team of the girls’ mums who decided they would like to do it too and they’re having great success as well,” she says.

“It’s such a lovely family activity and I enjoy the people, and being on the water,” says Francie, who’s adamant she’ll never hang up her blades. “I want to be still competing when I’m 80.”