Guy Wilding   Shelley Oates-Wilding

If you're an American canoe or kayak racer, chances are you've heard of the Lanier Canoe and Kayak Club.

"By far, this is the best club in the nation," LCKC and junior U.S. national canoe/kayak coach Guy Wilding said.

The LCKC has proven that statement time and again, winning five national club titles since first competing in 1999, as well as producing several members of the U.S. junior and senior national team.

In the recently held Pan American Games in Lake Beauport, Canada, half of the paddlers on the U.S. national team, which won eight gold medals overall, were from the LCKC.

"(The Pan Am Games) were just a fantastic accomplishment," Wilding said. "We had huge representation on the U.S. teams. We've got seven on the senior (top level) team. That's three times what we had before."

Starting Aug. 5, the LCKC hopes to make their name, and that of the U.S. junior national team, internationally known, as Wilding leads several members of the LCKC and the entire junior national team to Hungary for Junior World Canoe and Kayak Championships.

"We're very excited about what's going to happen in Hungary," said LCKC Executive Director Connie Hagler, who helped found the club. "Now we're starting to try and compete at an international level."

Yet despite their enthusiasm, LCKC coaches Guy Wilding and his wife Shelley Oates-Wilding, a former Olympic kayaker for Australia, know they have a huge challenge ahead.

"Going to the World Championships is moving up a big level," Wilding said. "The Europeans (who dominate much of the sport) are fully funded and have more competitions than we do in the U.S.

"We're behind the eight ball a little. But there's also so much talent here."

But that talent that, so far, hasn't been able to make much of a dent at the world level.

"Only one guy has ever made a junior world final from the U.S.," Oates-Wilding said. "That's our goal this year, to at least get people into the top nine. We want to go to the world championships to medal, not just because we're the best in the U.S."

To reach the final nine at the world championships, competitors must advance through a heat run and then a semifinal competition against the best paddlers in the world, which includes the host Hungarians, Polish and Germans, among others.

"We want to take them where they've never been," Oates-Wilding said.

That was the couple's stated purpose when the Wildings applied for the coaching position at LCKC last year.

"The timing was right when we arrived," said Wilding, who shifted LCKC's training methods from more traditional European methods -- long, endurance training -- to more explosive, sprint training.

Since implementing their methods in October this year, the results are very encouraging.

Under their supervision, four junior kayakers from LCKC won gold at the Pan Am Games: Morgan House, Kalen Lee and Ann Hollingshead.

House and Lee, the top two junior kayakers in the U.S. the last two years, were also invited to join the U.S. senior squad, making them the first junior team members ever to compete for both junior and senior teams. Each athlete is aiming to make the U.S. Olympic team for 2008 in Beijing.

"Guy and Shelley have been really great," said LCKC and U.S. national junior team member Emily Mickle, who also went to the junior world championships in 2003. "They're always there for us. They're really very inspirational."

Inspiring is a big part of the training the Wildings put their students through.

"We're trying to develop the Olympian attitude in all of our athletes," Oates-Wilding said.

They're also trying to get there their athletes used to the pressures of race situations.

Every Saturday morning, the LCKC holds a mock-regatta, incorporating real judges and keeping official times.

"It refines their mental preparation," Wilding said. "So when they get into a big race, it's not a new experience. We're just trying to maximize their potential."

According to their students, it's mission accomplished.

"We have the best program in the U.S., and the best coaches," said Josh Brandsma, 17, who will travel to Hungary as part of the U.S. four-man kayak team. "We're ready to go."

Other LCKC members, and U.S. junior national team members, who will make the trip to Hungary include kayakers Victoria Llonch, Jen Burke, Maia Farah Wellman, Emily Wright, Brady Bragg and Patrick Doland. Also going are canoers Rich Stewart and Rob Finalyson.