Gordon Barff on the Tahitian Selection: Inside the Work of the Federation’s Technical Director

With the 2026 World Srint Championships in Singapore just weeks away, the Tahitian Va’a selection is entering the final stages of its preparation. During the team’s penultimate training session in Tahiti, we caught up with Gordon Barff, Technical Director of the Tahitian Va’a Federation, to discuss the selection process, the challenge of bringing together the country’s strongest individual paddlers, and the crucial role played by clubs in preparing the national team. After a record medal haul overseas in 2024, expectations will once again be high in Singapore. But behind the performances on the water lies a much larger collective effort.

Building on a record-breaking 2024

Tahiti will head to Singapore hoping to build on its success at the previous World Championships. “In 2024, we achieved our record number of gold medals abroad,” Gordon explains. “We’re going to try to achieve at least half of that, and hopefully the same again, to give the very best of ourselves.”

The preparation has been underway for several months. The process began with a pre-selection in January, followed by further selection stages in February and March, before the final selection was completed in April, ahead of the official registration with the international federation.

Two championships, two different approaches

One of the particularities of the World Sprint Championships is that there are two distinct competitions: the Elite Championship and the Club Championship.

For the club competition, the federation has allowed the clubs to build the crews they believe can perform best.

The elite selection follows a different approach. “This year, we really focused on the individual side,” Barff explains. But selecting the strongest individual paddlers is only part of the equation. Certain positions, particularly the steersmen, require specific experience and cannot simply be replaced. “You can’t invent them. If you have twelve of the best V1 paddlers but no steersmen, you have to make adjustments.”

The challenge then becomes turning a collection of outstanding individuals into a functioning crew. “It’s like the French football team or the Spanish football team. When you bring together so many individual talents, it can be difficult to put everyone together.” That is where the coaching team becomes essential. Barff highlights the work of Philippe Bernardino, Nadine, Titini and the wider coaching team, who have the difficult task of bringing all these individual personalities together before Singapore. “Hopefully, by the time we get there in four weeks, it will produce something good.”

The reality behind the athletes

For Barff, one of the biggest challenges of preparing the national team is not necessarily what happens on the water. It is understanding the reality of the athletes who make up the selection.

“The most difficult part is really trying to provide as much support as possible, first to the coaches and athletes, but especially to the clubs that entrust us with their champions.” Because despite the level of performance expected from the Tahitian selection, most of these paddlers are not full-time professionals. “Everyone says we are professionals. That’s not true. We are all workers.” Some athletes combine elite-level Va’a with demanding jobs. Barff gives the example of paddlers who have been working on construction sites until four in the morning before continuing with their sporting commitments.

That reality makes the role of the federation and clubs even more important. “We have to find a way to support these clubs and tell them: bring us your athletes, and we will support you.”

A team effort beyond the water

For Barff, supporting the Tahitian selection means working across the entire structure of the sport. His role involves supporting the athletes, the coaches and, crucially, the clubs that make their participation possible. He also highlights the work of the federation’s board and its president, Rodolphe Poirier, whose commitment he describes as exceptional. The Tahitian delegation is scheduled to leave for Singapore on August 14, arriving on August 15, with the return planned for August 30. The team will therefore spend more than two weeks in Singapore. By then, the months of selection, training and organisation will have led to one final objective: arriving ready to race.

The challenge is not simply to gather the fastest paddlers in Tahiti. It is to build crews capable of working together, support the clubs and athletes behind them, and make sure that a team of paddlers who are also workers can perform at the highest level on the international stage. Tahiti will once again be one of the teams to watch in Singapore. And while the medals will ultimately be won on the water, the foundations of the campaign have been built long before race day, through the athletes, coaches, clubs, federation and families working together behind the scenes.

>> Our full video interview with Gordon Barff in French is available here

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