VLC paddler holds club’s name up high
Local paddler Richard Cele recently shone in the FNB Dusi, as well as the Non-Stop Dusi events.
The FNB Dusi Canoe Marathon is an infamous endurance canoe race which has taken place annually since the 1960s.
The race was started by Ian Player, from Pietermaritzburg to Durban, and is known as the world’s toughest endurance canoe event.
Paddlers have to take boats out of the river and run for a few kilometres every now and then, at specific points where the river is unnavigable or dangerous, up steep mountains and down slippery muddy slopes, through thick bush in the Valley of 1 000 Hills.
The river itself also has treacherous rapids and paddlers need to be very alert not to break boats on the boulders strewn throughout the UmsinDusi River, while fast flow and high drops through the rocky rapids can also sabotage them.
A few thousand paddlers take part annually to prove their toughness.
This year, after a gruelling three days, from Thursday to Saturday, last week, Victoria Lake Canoe Club’s Richard Cele and his partner from the Dusi Valley, Mfaniseni Nyambose, finished 19th overall in a time of 8 hours 59 minutes over the 120km of strenuous racing.
Cele himself grew up in the Zululand Valley, where he learned to canoe and also knows the river well, while being strong on the run aspect of the race, and has traditionally been one of the top Gauteng-based paddlers at the event.
Cele also took part in the Non-Stop Dusi event a few days later, which saw him taking third position overall.
This event is a one-day Dusi race on the same river over the same distance.
The only difference with this event is that it starts at sunset and finishes by sunrise, instead of taking three days to complete.
This was an outstanding achievement for Cele.
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Local paddler tackles the Dusi
