Australia Women’s Rafting Team Vows To Honour Fallen ‘River Sista’ THE Australian Women’s Rafting Team will be made up of EJ Mathieson, Sharon Gallardo San Martin, Lauren Horsey, Rachael Fulton, Michelle Blackwell, Clarissa Knowlton, and the team captain, Ebony Arnold. From 13-20 May 2019, they will compete in the four disciplines of competitive white water rafting: sprints, head to head, slalom and downriver. CCIN had the chance to sit down with the ladies and discuss what drives them and what makes the difference between winning and losing in rafting. One of the first things they emphasised was that this is a team sport where they have to move as one, responding to the river’s nuances in the blink of an eye, knowing what the other five people in the raft are thinking and planning, all while travelling and turning at high-speed. In rafting, teamwork trumps individual skill. It’s about working in unison. They have to trust each other to make the right move at the right time. “One wrong paddle stroke could cause someone to fall out, and then you’re basically done for that race,” said Horsey. Arnold put it another way: “The difference between the right line and the wrong line could be a single centimetre.”
Arnold represented Australia in the last World Rafting Championships in Argentina in 2018, along with Horsey, and she’s a great example of the team concept. She loves to be at the back, where she excels, but she recognises that there are others on the team with more experience on the Tully River. “They’ll guide us better, so I’ll be up front for this event.” We asked them did they feel any pressure. Yes, they called out in unison. “We have the advantage here because we have so much experience on the Tully. Everyone expects us to know the river,” said Arnold. “That puts enormous pressure on us.” These days, weight of expectations and knowing how important it is that they move as one single unit keeps the team on the water five to six days a week from 8:00am to 4:00pm. They’re working out every contingency, learning how to react to every line, every rock, every possible complication. The X factor driving them will be their eighth teammate, who will be sitting in the raft with them for every race just as she has for every practise. Her name was Cassandra Emary. Cassandra is the 23-year-old Australian adventurer who broke the community’s hearts when she died while kayaking in Nepal in Novem-
ber 2018 – 19 days after representing Australia at the 2018 championships in Argentina. She’d so looked forward to representing her nation on the Tully River. You only have to mention Cassandra’s name in the presence of her teammates and see their faces to know how much she meant to them. “She was an amazing person and if you watched her race, you knew right away she was the future of Australian rafting,” said Horsey. Her ‘river sistas’ are planning to honour her apart from giving 110%. “Her mum has asked us to wear something orange when we race, so we’re thinking of getting orange wrist bands made up.” Orange is a sacred colour in Nepal, where Cassandra was revered. She was the first known westerner to have a modernised traditional Nepali cremation on the river where she passed. “She even had the Dalai Lama pray for her,” said her mum, Sue Emary. Emary, has been running a fundraiser under the moniker, ‘donate a dollar to help raise a million’ to honour Cassandra’s wish to promote women in adventure sports. “Cassandra wrote in journals throughout her life and it is because of these journals, we knew what she wanted to do with her life and the driving
need within her to make a difference. She outlined how she planned to do this in her journals and the time frame in which she hoped to achieve it. Although she can no longer travel this path herself, we intend to travel it for her. We will make our girl proud, and through this foundation, Cassandra Emary will make a difference!” The team expects to do best in the slalom and down river events, which is good for them because those events account for the most overall points. The Slalom is the most technically challenging event and counts for 30% percent of the total points,
and the Downriver is considered the star event and is worth 40% of the total score. The sprint is the opening event. It’s hard and fast. While it’s only worth 10% of the overall total, the results are used to place teams in the head-to-head (H2H) competition, which is worth 20% of the total. Another part of their team are their sponsors. The Australian team consists of amateurs and rely heavily on these sponsors to help them. http://www.cassangafund.com.au/ https://www.chacos.com.au https://www.foamingfury.com.au