Perth Voice Interactive

MENORA paddler Georgina Collin is the only woman to make both teams for the 2015 wildwater and the canoe slalom junior world championships.

The canoe slalom race is in Brazil in April and then she’ll be heading to North Carolina, USA for the wildwater race.

The former Perth college student used to be a javelin champ, winning a state championship when she was 12, but then a knee problem meant she had to call it a day.

“The surgeon said kayaking would be a good option,” Ms Collin says.

The sport has its hazards like getting stuck under a waterfall or being tipped upside down (all you can do is wait till you’re out of the suck spot and then right yourself) but Ms Collin says “I never was very scared of that when I started.

“When I first started I did some dumb things like paddling down rapids, I rolled a lot, I got stuck in stoppers… I think I’m more scared now.”

In the slalom it’s rocketing back and forth darting between poles, while the wildwater race is a sprint down the rapids.

She can only train rapids for three months a year, with her dedicated dad driving her out to Chittering Valley: the rest of the year it’s flatwater practice.

Ms Collin was due to start a physiotherapy course at Curtin this year but she’s deferred her studies so she can make all the team training camps on the east coast ahead of the big comp.

And while she’ll be in the party capital of the universe for the Brazilian comp, there’ll be no time for post-race partying: “We leave at 6am the next day!”

by DAVID BELL