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The pressures of tours, PSA admin and the upcoming Ocean Racing World Championships forced me to cancel the annual tour to Mozambique with the Pirates surfski group.
In hindsight, I may as well have gone, as I did not accomplish much in the daily toil department.
Instead, I spent four days yelling at my computer screen in an attempt to solicit improved performances from our marathon paddlers.
It appeared to have worked, as we have much to be proud of.
The week of activities at the ICF Marathon World Championships, in Gyor, Hungary, kicked off last Monday with the masters K1 races, followed the next day by the masters K2 races.
As usual, our large, and vociferous, masters contingent did not disappoint, bringing home an array of medals.
One of the “stand out” masters performances came from our 13-time world champion, Hank McGregor, who obliterated the field in his age group and then joined his wife Pippa for an action replay in the mixed doubles. Other gold medals came from Graham Monteith, Bridgitte Hartley, and Mike Stewart.
The standard and depth of competition in the masters division always ramps up a few notches when the world championships is held in Europe, so these medals were well earned.
The main game started on the Thursday, with the short course heats and finals. This was the first year that a junior category was included in the short course program.
Sadly, Hamish Lovemore fell victim to a vile lurgy and was sidelined for the entire duration. This put paid to the highly anticipated showdown between himself and Mads Pedersen in the short course and long course races.
Although our brave team did not come home with any gold medals, there were some awesome performances.
Top of the list must be Andy Birkett’s silver in the men’s K1 race. For the second time in world marathon history, Mads did a hatchet job on the field and simply paddled away on his own. This left a chasing group, of the world’s finest, to dice it out for second place. Our previous world champion stepped up to the plate and did the job. The 11th hour replacement for Hamish, Nic Notten, had a blinder, finishing sixth.
Next best performance must go to Keegan Vogt in the junior K1 race. He ended up in a final breakaway with Butterly from Ireland, but succumbed in the end sprint, to claim another silver. Hot on his tail was Cody Stallard who finished in an impressive 4th place.
Rounding off solid K1 performances was the phenomenal effort of Jade Wilson, who paddled a gutsy and tactically mature race, to secure a bronze medal in the women’s U23 event. She was also followed fairly closely by Saskia Hockly who was two shy of a podium, in 5th place.
Not satisfied with only the single medal, Keegan teamed up with Ryley Smith to claim the bronze in the junior K2 race, with Cody and Jarryd finishing 3 places further back in 6th.
A couple of other performances that definitely deserve a mention are the 4th place of Jenna Nisbet and Jade Wilson in the senior women’s K2 and the 6th place of Clint Cook and Nic Notten in the senior men’s K2.
That’s a wrap for marathon paddling until next year when we start getting ready for Argentina.
Full report and results
 Back to the local scene. The premier Gauteng K2 race, the Liebenbergsvlei Clean Water Challenge, starts today.
Paddlers who are lucky enough to be there will be spoilt with a strongly flowing river with clean water.
The count down to the ICF Ocean Racing World Championships has taken on a life of its own.
Only 35 days to go.
We are up to 500 entrants already, with 28 days still left to enter.
The bad news for those who are planning on leaving it that late, is that the entry fee goes up after Monday to R2400.
Also, those entering after Monday will not be receiving a custom-made race shirt with the SA flag on the sleeve. They will feel like the Russian athletes and will need to race in a neutral shirt.
Durban is gearing up big time to welcome all our national and international guests. |
