SA Marathon Team named for Worlds
The South African team to do battle at the 2016 ICF Canoe Marathon World Championships in Brandenberg, Germany, has been selected.
FOLLOWING a typically hard fought Prescient South African Canoe Marathon Championships in Cape Town recently, the South African team to do battle at the 2016 ICF Canoe Marathon World Championships in Brandenberg, Germany, has been selected with world champ Hank McGregor set to lead the Republic’s charge.
Euro Steel/Kayak Centre’s McGregor, who is an eight-time World Champion, showed his marathon racing prowess when he mastered the tricky conditions at the recent national championships bout at a windy Zandvlei near Muizenberg and added another national title to his long list of achievements.
His closest rival, Euro Steel’s Andy Birkett, capsized twice during the race but the former U23 World Marathon Champion showed his determination and got himself back in the race and finished in that all-important runner’s up position which gave him the second Senior Men’s K1 spot.
Birkett's 2015 World Championship assault in Hungary was one that he was not satisfied with as he finished outside the top 10 in the K1 race and his training and preparation has been geared towards making amends for that disappointment.
The men’s K2 event was no less competitive despite pre-race favourites and 2015 World Championship silver medallists Hank McGregor and Jasper Mocké not being together on the start line as Mocké, who had recently returned from surfski paddling in Hawaii, was unable to start due to sickness.
McGregor then paddled the race with Soweto Canoe and Recreation Club ace Siseko Ntondini however they were no match for the Pietermaritzburg based Birkett and U23 star Louis Hattingh who won the race from Stuart MacLaren and Brandon van der Walt in second.
The women’s team will be led by the diminutive Jenna Ward. The MACSquad star will be in her third and final year of U23 and with two World Championship K1 bronze medals to her name she will be hoping that she can turn that into silver or gold.
Kyeta Purchase, who was a revelation at the 2015 World Champs, returns to partner Ward in a young K2 that mixed it up with the best at the 2015 showpiece and will be hoping to emulate that performance again in 2016.
Purchase will also be paddling in the U18 category in a K1 along with Christie Mackenzie while the latter will team up with Sabine Lawrie for the Junior Girls K2 event.
Ward and Melanie van Niekerk will represent South Africa in the U23 women’s K1 event with Bianca Beavitt and Nicole Russell selected to compete in the Senior Women’s K1 event.
Louis Hattingh and Nicholas Notten will represent the Rainbow Nation in the U23 men’s K1 event with the impressive Jean van der Westhuyzen teaming up with Mark Keeling in the Junior Boys K2. The pair will also be team South Africa’s representatives in the Junior Boys K1.
Zachery Preyser and his Western Cape partner Ulvard Hart will be the second Junior Boys boat at the Championships.
