Wednesday, 09 June 2010 17:24
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Western Cape hopefuls for SA Champs
The following paddlers (see team list following this preview) will do duty for the Western Cape Canoe Union at the South African Canoe Marathon Championships that are being held on the Keurbooms River, Plettenberg Bay, this coming weekend.
The outcome of these S.A. Champs. will be to not only crown S.A. Champions in their respective categories (Juniors, U23, Seniors and Masters categories), but also to select a South African Canoe Marathon Team to take part in the annual World Canoe Marathon Championships, which this year will take place in Bayonnes, Spain, from 22nd to 26th September, 2010.
The S.A. K1 (singles) championships will be held on Saturday 12th with the S.A. K2 (doubles) championships being held on Sunday 13th June.
All the W.C.C.U. paddlers chosen have been hard at work for the championships, none more so than Milnerton’s Lance King and the premier Senior Men’s canoeist in the Western Cape last season and so far this season. To this end, he has even dropped paddling the weekend day races, now mostly on the Berg River (that season now being underway for over 3 weeks now) to focus on flat water marathon training. He certainly showed his talents at the W.C.C.U. Canoe Marathon Championships on 8th May, when he won well against a field that had in it the experienced Graeme Solomon (Peninsula) and the prodigious talent of the Maties Pierre-Andre Rabie. King again showed his worth in the W.C.C.U. K2 canoe marathon championships, when, with fellow U23 paddler, Sean Rice (Peninsula), they overcame a plus/minus 2 minute time penalty when they missed the start (equipment failure saw them struggling to get their canoe ready when the race began), to win still win the championships, albeit in an end sprint from the very experienced K2 of Ernest van Riet (Maties) and Heinrich Schloms (Paarl), and with up and coming ‘siblings’ crew of Andrew and Patrick Birkett also in on the sprint for the line.
These two top crews will be well challenged on the Keurbooms Rivers by up-country teams, the like of KZN’s Grant van der Walt and Hank McGregor, who will be paddling in the K1 event and then coming together in the K2’s, as they have in various canoeing events in recent season as well as canoe marathon (they were one of the S.A. Senior men’s teams at last years World Championships in Portugal, where they committed themselves very well), as well as by their fellow Natalian, Marc Holtzhausen, who has come through the ranks sensationally in recent times. In addition, there is ‘old hand’, the phenomenal Ant Stott, who with Gold, Silver and Bronze medals from previous World Championships, can never be discounted in any field. Stott has teamed up in a K2 with W.C.C.U.’s Graeme Solomon (who has also represented South Africa at multiple World Championships) and by what was seen on last evenings weekly time trial at Peninsula Canoe Club, when they blitzed the course in what must be a record breaking 37 minutes (record need to be checked), they are ‘red-hot’ at the moment and will give any K2 team in the country a good race. Gauteng’s experienced Jacques Theron and Piers Cruikshank (both national colours holders) will be backed by Dusi gold medallist Michael Mbanjwa and Alex Roberts to complete what will be a top-gun group of Senior Men’s paddlers in both the K1 and K2 events.
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