Paddlers Mokoto and Olszewski fly the Boksburg flag
Boksburg C1 class paddlers Calvin Mokoto and Radek Olszewski participated at the South African Senior Sprint Interprovincial competition which took place at Roodeplaat, on the outskirts of Pretoria during the weekend of September 7 and 8.
The competition saw paddlers from as far out as KwaZulu-Natal and the Cape present for participation as national selectors sought to identify the best candidates to represent South Africa at the African Championships, which will be held in Namibia during the month of November this year.
Olszewski, who competes in the master category, has been mentor, supporter and coach to the more younger Mokoto, and the relationship has seen both paddlers compete on international level as well.
Mokoto and Olszewski who are members of the East Rand Kayak Club based in Benoni, competed in a wide variety of race distances, including the Olympic sprint distances of 200m, 500m and 1 000m in both the C1 and C2 disciplines, which are single and double boat disciplines.
Both finished third in the 200m C2 double boat event in a time of 47 minutes and in the single boat C1 event, Mokoto finished fourth in 48.12 seconds and Olszewski finished sixth in 51.87 seconds.
The 500m yielded better results for the two.
They finished fourth in the C2 in 2:09 hours, with Olszewski finishing in an impressive second and Motoko filling the third place position in a time of 2:21 and 2:25 respectively.
The 1 000m saw the men from Boksburg getting their best results of the weekend as they finished second for the C2 event in 4:58 hours; Olszewski finishing second in the C1 in 5:17 and Motoko third in 5:45.
