The Ekurhuleni sports and recreation department, in conjunction with the Victoria Lake Canoe Club (VLC), hosted the Ekurhuleni District Sprint Canoeing competition, at Germiston Lake, last Sunday.
“The race was the second of eleven events that the Gauteng Canoe Union (GCU) School League will be holding across Gauteng in 2017,” said Jodie Dreyer, a volunteer on the GCU School League committee.
“We had over 120 paddlers pre-enter for this event from 27 schools.”
The long distance and sprint race saw paddlers aged from u-8 to the open age category compete.
The long distance event had a set course and the number of laps was dependent on the age group.
The u-8 to u-10 paddlers did one lap, u-12s did two laps and the u-14, u-16, u-18 and the open category did three laps.
“The event organisers and the team on the day were all volunteers who were supported by the valuable assistance of the National Sea Rescue Institution (NSRI) and St John’s Ambulance,” said Dreyer.
“The race was sponsored by the metro, which provided transport, food parcels, caps, medals and trophies for paddlers.”
Dreyer also said paddlers are awarded points for each school league race they participate in, in 2017, towards a league position which is announced at the annual prize-giving event in November.
Ribbons were given to all participants and medals were awarded to the paddlers who obtained podium positions in their respective categories.
“In support of the wonderful work that VLC and the metro are doing with their youth canoe training initiative, all their team paddlers received medals for recognition of their training and racing in this race event,” said Dreyer.
Here are some of the race results:
Long distance: u-8 boys
- Quintus Mienie
- Thomas Wilmot
- Rupert Schonborn
Long distance: u-8 girls
- Izania van Sandwyk
Long distance: u-10 boys
- Divan Bornman
- Marco van Sandwyk
- Mathew Wilson
No u-10 girls competed.
Long distance: u-12 boys
- Lynton Oelofse
- Theo Dreyer
- Nicholas Erwee
Long distance: u-12 girls
- Ameerah Hank
- Alexandra de Klerk
- Justine Tillet
Long distance: u-14 boys
- Finlay Leask
- Ruan van Pletzen
- Connor Erwee
Long distance: u-14 girls
- Jo-Ane Prinsloo
- Kamilah Hank
- Tianni Prins
Long distance: u-16 boys
- Sean van Pletzen
- Peter Tumiel
- Dihan Roos
Long distance: u-16 girls
- Abigal Bezuidenhout and Alexis Richie
- Megan Oelofse
Long distance: u-18 boys
- Mathew Eckhart
- Tristan Trican
- Joshua Davies
Long distance: u-18 girls
- Caroline van der Linde
- Shanae Marais
- Pooja Satyaprakash
Long distance: open category boys
- Francois Joubert
- Connor Davies
- Leonard Geldenhuys
No girls competed in the open category.
500m sprint: u-8 boys
- Quintus Mienie
- Thomas Wilmot
- Christian Swanepoel
500m sprint: u-8 girls
- Izania van Sandwyk
500m sprint: u-10 boys
- Divan Bornman
- Marco van Sandwyk
- Pieter van Niekerk
No u-10 girls competed.
500m sprint: u-12 boys
- Lynton Oelofse
- Theo Dreyer
- Nichola Erwee
500m sprint: u-12 girls
- Ameerah Hank
- Justine Tillet
- Alexandra de Klerk
500m sprint: u-14 boys
- Finlay Leask
- Ruan van Pletzen
- Connor Erwee
500m sprint: u-14 girls
- Jo-Ane Prinsloo
- Alexa Godden
- Kamilah Hank
500m sprint: u-16 boys
- Sean van Pletzen
- Peter Tumiel
- Dihan Roos
500m sprint: u-16 girls
- Abigal Bezuidenhout
- Megan Oelofse
- Alexis Richie
500m sprint: u-18 boys
- Mathew Eckhart
- Tristan Trican
- March Strauss
500m sprint: u-18 girls
- Caroline van der Linde
- Shanae Marais
- Pooja Satyaprakash
500m sprint: open category boys
- Francois Joubert
- Connor Davies
- Leonard Geldenhuys
No girls competed in the open category.
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