The former national championship-winning crew of Clint Cook and Wayne Jacobs will be back in a boat together this weekend aiming to claim the 2024 ADG Vaal River Canoe Marathon and regain the South African K2 Championship title.
The Team Euro Steel pair won the SA K2 title in 2020 and Cook will also go into this weekend’s race as the defending Vaal champion after his narrow victory with young Luke Salmon last year.
12 months ago Jacobs, paddling with Robert Crichton, was on the wrong end of that result as they finished third on both days and he will be hoping the revival of his partnership with Cook will give the all-Gauteng duo a home-town victory and retrieve their national title.
This year’s event is characterised by a slew of new-look teams with the three crews most likely to be fighting for victory all made up of paddlers from the top positions in 2023, but all with different partners.
Cook and Jacobs were first and third respectively in 2023, while their biggest challenge looks likely to be from the potent KZN combination of Msawenkosi Mtolo and Sandile Mtolo (fifth and fourth in 2023) and the Gauteng / KZN duo of Siseko Ntondini and Bongani Ntinga (second and fourth).
The Mtolo brothers are coming off a one-two result from a week ago when Msawenkosi outsprinted Sandile to win the Kindo Covers Ozzie Gladwin event on the Upper Umgeni river, while Ntinga was fourth a week ago and Ntondini recently finished second to Cook in the technical TRAC Lowveld Croc.
Two other crews who will be hoping to be in contention are last year’s podium finisher Crichton, with Michael-John Robb who edged into the top ten 12 months ago, and the vastly experienced combination of Piers Cruickshanks and Jacques Theron who were just one second away from a top-five finish in 2023.
The two-day ADG Vaal River Canoe Marathon will see paddlers starting just below the Vaal Dam wall on Saturday morning and paddling to the Albatross Ski Boat Club 34km downstream, and then resuming battle on Sunday in the 37km stage from Eden Manor to Umfula Resort.