Peter Shaun Genders

The Derwent Canoe Club gave Peter the opportunity to become involved with a sport which, in 1975, had only recently became accepted as a serious sport in Australia. Most of the great canoeists were European but Peter was visionary enough to recognise that Tasmania had superb rivers on which he could develop his obvious talents.

He developed manual skills as an apprentice carpenter and used these to good effect to mend and build some of his early canoes.

It was not long before he started to move through the ranks of club competitions to become a state champion and then selected to first represent Tasmania in 1978 at the national level. He became extremely proficient in two disciplines - sprint or flat water racing and slalom or wild water. Peter won the State K1 wild water title in 1980 & 81, and in 1981 won his first Australian title and also won the same event at the New Zealand championships. He was then chosen to represent Australia at the World titles and finished in 14th place at his first attempt at a major international event.

Success in the slalom continued when he retained his K1 Australian title in 1982, won the Commonwealth title in the same year and the Australian title again in 1984.

Peter was then introduced to sprint racing. He developed into one of the best sprinters Australia has produced. In events ranging from 500 m to 10,000 m he excelled.

He won championships in Tasmania, Victoria (where he resided for a short time to take advantage of a new course at Carrum) and Australian titles and also won the 500 m K1 Dutch international in 1983.

He completed in the K1 1000 m sprint event at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Games and finished 5th in the final. Together with his great friend Martin Ralph they competed in the 500 m K2 sprint but were eliminated in the repercharge.

After those excellent performances in Los Angeles, Peter returned to Australia and had one more season of racing before retiring in 1985. In a short career of just 6 years of state, national and international competition Peter won 2 Tasmanian, 3 Australian and 3 International slalom titles and in K1 & K2 sprint events his record was equally impressive winning 11 Australian championships and 1 International event.