Kayaking Couple Hopes to Make Waves : Sports Festival: San Diego’s Patrick and DeAnne Hemmens experienced success in 1989. This year, both are expecting even more.

Last year, kayakers Patrick and DeAnne Hemmens of San Diego were happy just competing at the U.S. Olympic Festival.

In their first time out, both did extremely well. But when they compete Saturday and Sunday at the Festival in Minneapolis, they will be concentrating more on their times and less on the butterflies in their stomachs.

In the 1989 Festival in Oklahoma, DeAnne won a gold medal in K-4 (the term for a four-person kayak), placed fourth in K-2 and 13th in K-1. Her husband, Patrick, also won a gold medal in the K-4 and a silver in the K-2 500 meters. He didn’t finish in his K-1 competition because his rudder broke.

This year, both will compete for the West team in the same three events. They left for Minneapolis Wednesday and were to receive their partners upon arrival. Practice sessions were Thursday and today. Patrick did know that he would again be paired with Mitch Kahn of San Clemente in the two-man boat.

Chris Barlow of San Diego and Patrick Richardson of La Jolla are also competing.

“I’m expecting a little bit more of myself,” DeAnne said. “Last year, I was just so happy to be there, I couldn’t believe I was there. Really, I want it for both of us. I really want to see Patrick beat some people that he should be beating, and together we can do it.

“I have definite time goals. I wanted to do well at the World Team trials (in Lake Placid, N.Y., in June), and I didn’t do as well as I hoped, so I sort of have something to prove.”

Added Patrick: “She has people to beat.”

Hearing DeAnne talk of her goals and accomplishments, it’s hard to imagine that she only has been kayaking a little more than a year and that it all began in jest.

Shortly after the Hemmens were married a year and a half ago, DeAnne said she found that between work schedules and Patrick’s training schedule, she was becoming one of those wives who wait for their husband to get home while dinner is getting cold. As a solution, DeAnne learned to kayak.

“He’d train for two to three hours after work, and I never saw him,” DeAnne said. “It started as a joke. I’ve always been athletic, but it takes a long time to learn to kayak because the boat is so tippy.

“I remember when he was trying to teach me, I thought, ‘How can you ever paddle?’ He used to laugh at me, and say, ‘You’ll get it, you’ll get it.’ I’d be paddling along slowly about ready to fall, and he’d come sprinting by with all his friends. They make big waves as they went by, and I’d usually tip.”

Patrick has been kayaking for 10 years but did not begin sprinting, the Olympic sport, until last year. A South African, Patrick said marathon kayaking is more popular in his homeland, which cannot compete in the Games. Patrick will be eligible for American citizenship in December, 1991, after three years of marriage. Since he will then be eligible for the 1992 Olympics, he is now able to participate in U.S. Olympic Committee-sanctioned events.

So while DeAnne was getting used to sitting in the boat, Patrick was making the transition from marathon kayaking on African rivers to sprinting on Mission Bay. Marathoners paddle courses as long as 50 miles in one day and up to 170 miles in four. In the sprints, men compete over 500 or 1,000 meters, women over 500.

“It’s like taking a marathon runner and making him run against Carl Lewis,” Patrick said. “It’s completely different training. I prefer marathons because I’m better at it.”

Right now, the couple trains two times a day in the water. Every other day, they alternate running or lifting weights. They plan to take September off, and from October to February, they will do conditioning through running, swimming, cross-country skiing and lifting. In the winter, they paddle three of four times a week. When the kayak season is ready to resume in March, they begin two times a day in the water again.

In the World Team trials in Lake Placid, DeAnne placed eighth overall; five women made the team. Patrick was 13th among the men, with eight being chosen.

In August, the couple will travel to the U.S. Nationals in Indianapolis, where they will compete in a K-2 together for the first time.

“Both of our goals is to make the Olympics,” Patrick said. “Just to make the team and be able to paddle in the Olympics.

He added: “It’s not a sport where you can come along and suddenly be good in six months--it takes years and years. It takes six months before you feel comfortable in the boat. DeAnne used to be a competitive swimmer, so she’s got a lot of upper body strength. That’s why as soon as she got her balance, she caught on very fast. Somebody just starting out might take longer. It’ll be years until DeAnne is world class.”

DeAnne said that having her husband at a major competition is nice but can also be stressful.

“Sometimes we both get really stressed out and are thinking of ourselves,” DeAnne said. “Especially me. Because I’m newer at competing, I think of myself a lot. One of my goals in the Olympic Festival and at the nationals is to be calm and in control in a stressful situation instead of being out of control.

“If we’re going to be competing world class, we want to be together doing it, supporting each other and helping each other instead of working against each other.”