The away games last weekend where in Hangzhou where China hosted the inaugural ICF Canoe-Kayak Super Cup, with medals and prize monies in everything from Marathon to Slalom to Sprints to Polo and even Dragon Boat Racing, where South Africa had 4 representatives – Hamish (Liebenberg’s newest champion), Andy and Saskia in the Marathons and Esti Olivier in the Sprints.
The Women’s Short Course Marathon final looked like a rerun of the recent Marathon Champs with the Swede Andersson and the Hungarian Kiszli dominating. Saskia just missed the battle for bronze and came fourth. Both Hamish and Andy contested the Men’s Short Course final, Andy having done incredibly to have won his semi because he took a swim when putting in after first portage and then had to play catch up. It was an awesome come back. Up to and after the first portage Hamish seemed to be dominating the final when Andy appeared to fiddle with his watch on the deck of his boat and then Hamish put his paddles down to let Pederson take the pull and with that (along with his near perfect take-outs and put-ins) the big Dane said bye-bye. Andy took a comfortable Silver while Hamish just took the sprint for Bronze ahead of Vold and Candy.
The Women’s 21km Marathon also ended up as a two-boat race between Andersson and Kiszli with the Swede winning yet again. Saskia was very much in the mix for the first half of the race but appeared to tire at the end, finishing in sixth after a very busy 4 weeks of international marathon and surfski paddling. In the Men’s 21km, after 4 laps it looked to be a 4 boat race led by Candy, Pederson, Lovemore and Birkett. On lap 7 Pederson put the hammer down, only Hamish stayed with him, but eventually the machine called Mads went off on his own, as he has done before. It seemed that Hamish then waited for Andy so they could work together and they took Silver and Bronze well ahead of Candy and Knudsen.
In the Sprints, Esti was South Africa’s only representative, she came 3rd in the B final. Our polo guys (captained by Neil Burger) are also in China, but they are only there for the World Champs in Deqing, which start this week. Based on the Super Cup results, Germany will be the Polo team to beat.
The home games this weekend were a great introduction to sprints with the Dabs Dash which entailed 100m shootouts across all ages. In total we had 65 participants enjoying the fine summers day with Helen Jansen Van Vuuren winning the ladies while the men’s winner was Gareth Barberton. The fastest junior lady was Kayla Szalay and the fastest junior man was Kyle Armforf. One of the Dabs Darlings went so fast, she got a speed wobble and swam. After the racing the children played, swam and created their own version of sit on top paddling fun, while the guys from Franks served up fine food. Well done and thanks to Alexa for the organizing along with Phillipa Godden, Catie and Elizabeth Schaafsma for running the event. Thanks also to Alex Pitsillis for all the photos.
Last but not least – it was also Patrick’s Birthday this weekend – Happy Happy Mr Pat and thank you for all you do for the club!
Next up, it’s the TRAC Lowveld Croc. Piers promises an ideal level of about 7 cumecs, great war stories, the odd Lowveld tattoo and a big sense of pride at the end, along with the usual Lowveld hospitality of prego’s and ice-cold refreshments. Good luck to all who are going – enjoy the privilege of being out on one of SA’s finest rivers.
Till next time – Go Dabs…
