Thursday, 30 September 2010 07:45
High temperatures for Fish
Extremely hot. That's the warning from the weather office for the Klein Karoo area for the first day of the Hansa Powerade Fish River canoe marathon on Friday. The forecaster would have been unaware that the warning aptly describes the anticipation in the canoeing community ahead of the most competitive title race in the events 29 year history.
The Weather Service warning points to the mercury topping 36 degrees on Friday, which will add another dimension to the challenge facing the big field of over 1,720 paddlers that have already entered the race, with the usual cheeky very late entries still taxing the race staff in Cradock.
Hank McGregor has won the last two K2 championship races, with Len Jenkins in 2006 and again in 2008 with Grant van der Walt. However the defending champions will be shiftily looking over the shoulders at the start at Grassridge dam on Friday morning because there are at least a dozen crews capable of dethroning them and denying McGregor's hat-trick.
Of the potential duels on the river, there is none more spicy that the return of the German superstars Max Hoff and Stephan Stiefenhoefer. The Cologne based duo could easily have won in 2006, had the race been 100 metres longer, and were denied a second shot at the title in 2008 by a controversial collision with eventual winners McGregor and Van der Walt in the heart of Keith's Flyover rapid, less than an hour into the race.
Hoff is arguably the best paddler in the world at the moment, and proved this by retaining his 1000m K1 title at the sprint Worlds in Poland last month. Both have raced this race four times before, and they know what has to be done to win it, even if they have gambled big by jetting into the country the day before the race.
Far more rested and well prepared are another two top international crews, who have been billeted in Cradock for ten days, and are both being touted as potential champions based on what the locals have seen of them in training.
The Czech Republic clubmates from Olomouc outside Prague Robert Knebel and Tomáš Slovák both raced here last year, finishing in the top ten and vowed to return with a serious combined bid for a podium finish, However it is the French debutants Loïc Vynisale and Quentin Bonnetain from France who have made the biggest impression in their training, and are well poised for a major upset.
Their work will certainly be cut out for them, particularly after the eleventh hour entry of the man who has dominated this race since the turn of the new millennium - Len Jenkins, who, after entering in a single, snuck in a very late K2 entry with Durban Iron Man Matt Bouman.
Jenkins came away from the world marathon champs with a K1 medal on the weekend, and has been in sublime form. However he, like Grant van der Walt and several others, will have to manage their conditioning carefully in their travels back to South Africa top ensure they are able to peak again for the race on Friday and Saturday.
Expect a serious challenge in Australian colours as well, but with a distinctly local flavour. Stephen Bird, who still holds the junior record, will be starting his seventh Fish, racing with his Australian 200m K2 partner Jesse Phillips, fresh from their victory in the Liffey Descent in Ireland.
They will also be ready for some sibling rivalry on the water as Bird older brother Doug Bird and his partner Nic Burden are hell bent on improving their third placed finish in 2008.
The women's race will be just as hot. After squandering her best chance ever to win the Hansa Powerade Fish last year, Eastern Cape Olympian Michéle Eray has teamed up with last year’s champion Robyn Kime in a boat that will start as the clear favourites.
But with the first three women's crews home enjoying the same prize money as the men, there will be plenty of competition, particularly from Abby Adie and Lindi-May Harmsen, Jen Hodson and Tiff Kruger and the Cradock sisters Suzette and Hanré Maree.
The bumper field will be embracing the initiative to support the Cradock Cancer Care Unit by wearing specially made pink caps. The first day of the race coincides with national breast cancer awareness day. The project will include a second outing for the bright pink K4, which paddled its way into the history books last year by being the first K4 to complete the marathon.
While they succeeded in finishing, they couldn't conquer Cradock weir, despite going to attempt it three times in the race. Under skipper Grant van Greune they have vowed to settle a score with the massive weir on the outskirts of Cradock on Saturday.
The weekend will also include the inaugural Hansa Powerade Fish Mountain Bike Challenge, covering two days of tough racing in the hills around Cradock, as well as music concerts on the Friday and Saturday nights, with chart-toppers Watershed headlining the Friday night show.
Whether the race record that everyone said would never fall - the 4 hour 41 minute time posted by McGregor and Jenkins fleeing the charging Germans in 2006 - comes under threat will depend on several factors, including dramas on the rapids, trees and weirs that typify this race, the actual river flow into Cradock, and of course the weather. That we already know is guaranteed to be hot. Extremely hot.
The Hansa Powerade Fish river canoe marathon takes place in Cradock on 1 and 2 October. More information can be found at www.fishmarathon.org.za
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