MWKC Olympic Honour Roll

Naomi Flood

Naomi Flood (born 7 April 1986) is an Australian kayaker. She was the 2009 overall winner for the Ironwoman Series. She represented Australia at 2012 Summer Olympics in the K-2 500 m event, with teammate Lyndsie Fogarty

Naomi is a member of the Manly Surf Life Saving Club.^[4][5][6] As a surf lifesaver, she has won several medals at the Australian Surf Life Saving Championships.^[3][5] In 2009, she was the overall winner for the Ironwoman Series after winning the Australian and world titles in the competition.^[3][5]

Flood “Floody” started canoeing in 2009^[5] with friends from surfing in order to improve her surf ski skills.^[3] She was coached by Katrin Borchert from 2010 to 2011 before switching coaches to Martin Marinov in 2011.^[2][3] Her primary training base is on the Gold Coast, Australia with a secondary base in Sydney.^[2] She is a member of the Manly Warringah Kayak Club.^[2][3] She has a canoe scholarship with the Australian Institute of Sportand the NSW Institute of Sport.^[2][3]

Flood finished 3rd in the K1 1000m event at the 2011 World Championships in Szeged, Hungary.^[2][3] She finished 5th in the K4 500m event at the 2011 World Cup 2 in Racice, Czech Republic.^[2][3] She finished 9th in the K2 500m event at the 2011 World Cup 3 in Duisburg, Germany.^[2][3] She finished 2nd in the K2 500m event and 2nd in the K4 500m event at the 2012 Oceania Championships in Penrith, Australia.^[2][3] She finished 1st in the K2 500m event and 2nd in the K4 500m event at the 2012 National Championships in Penrith, Australia.^[2][5] At the 2012 ICF Sprint World Cup in Russia, she came in first in the K1 1000m event.^[5]

Flood has been selected to represent Australia at the 2012 Summer Olympics in the K-2 500 m event.^[5][7] She trained in the Gold Coast in May and June 2012.^[5] Before the start of the Games, she and her canoe teammates trained in Italy at the AIS European Training Centre located in Varese.

Olympian Yanda Morison (nee Nossiter) has represented Australia at two Olympic Games in the sport of sprint kayaking, racing at Atlanta in 1996 and Sydney in 2000 in Australia’s K4 sprint kayaking squad. A member of national team for 6 years, Sydney based Yanda trained at the NSW Academy of Sport, and raced at many world regattas and numerous world championships for her country.

Yanda competed in surf life saving and in 1999 won the Mixed Double Surf Ski Gold Medal at the Australian Surf Life Saving Championships. During her time as an elite kayaker Yanda raced Outrigger Canoes winning back to back titles at the 1997 and 1998 Wahine O’Ka Kai Molokai Outrigger event with the Australian Riggeroos team headed up by Lisa Curry.

Following her retirement from Olympic competition, Yanda turned her talent to ocean ski racing and in both 2004 and 2005 won the iconic 27km downwind race, The Doctor, from Rottnest Island to Perth. She later went on to compete in Surf Boats for 10 years, winning a Gold Medal in the Open Women’s Surf Boat event at the 2012 Australian Surf Life Saving Titles.

Yanda is a Level 2 Kayak Coach and accredited Personal Trainer, specialising in technical coaching for paddling disciplines.  She lives in Sydney, is married and is the mum of two boys.

Sydney 2000 – Canoe Sprint Womens Kayak Four (WK4) 500m10

Atlanta 1996 – Canoe Sprint Womens Kayak Four (WK4) 500m

Jo Brigden-Jones

Jo raced at the London 2012 Olympic Games and the posponed Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games. Jo and her K4 500m qualified for the final in Tokyo and placed 7th.

Jo is one of Australia’s top paddlers and has been for nearly two decades.Jo has raced for Australia every year since 2004, making it 18 years of national representation. Jo has won a World Championship medal, multiple World Cup medals and has the Australian National Champion 42 times. 

Dual international Anna Wood is a Dutch-born Australian sprint canoeist who competed in four Olympic Games between 1988 and 2000.

A member of the Dutch kayak team from 1983 to 1989 over distances from 500m to 5000m, it was paddling for the Netherlands as Annemarie Cox that the 1984 Open European Junior Champion won bronze in the K-2 500m at the Seoul 1988 Olympic Games.

After meeting her late husband Steve Wood – an Olympic bronze medallist in the men’s K-4 in Barcelona in 1992 – a move to Australia soon followed and, representing her adopted country, Anna again took K-2 500m bronze at the Atlanta 1996 Olympic Games.

At those Games the four-time Olympic finalist was joined in the boat by fellow Gold Coaster and Gold Coast Sporting Hall of Fame inductee, German-born Katrin Borchert. Together they are universally regarded as the most exciting Australian representative tandem combination of the 1990’s.

Following Atlanta, Wood and Borchert continued to be the most accomplished women’s pair on the international circuit, winning world titles at both 500m and 1000m before their winning streak at major events ended in Sydney 2000, where they placed sixth in the K-2 500m.

Anna was an Australian Institute of Sport scholarship holder from 1990 to 1994 and the winner of an amazing 31 national titles.

She took eight World Championship medals from the 11 International Canoe Federation World Championships she competed in, including three gold from the 1998 event in Szeged Hungary and the 1999 edition in Milan, Italy.

She also won four silver (K-1 5000m 1991, K-2 500m 1987,1997; K-2 1000m 1997) and a bronze (K-2 500m 1985).

Anna continues to paddle and mentor aspiring athletes on the placid waters of the Gold Coast.