A Dusi crown to savour for Birkett and Kime

A FLAWLESS three days of racing from Andy Birkett and Lance Kime resulted in a combined eighth FNB Dusi Canoe Marathon crown for the pair as Birkett registered his sixth and Kime his second title at Blue Lagoon in Durban on Saturday.

Having built up a healthy eight and a half minute lead going into the final day the pair had the title at their mercy following two sublime days of paddling but getting to the finish on the final day was a slog despite the absence of an immediate challenger.

“You forget that everyone is tired on the final day. Everyone is racing on tired bodies because the racing on day one and day two is really tough. You push it to the limit on those first two days which means that you need to keep your momentum on day three and try and not let the pace dip for too long.”

With the current drought being a dominant topic in the build-up to the race the lack of time spent on the river was a problem for the paddlers however the weather gods dished up a variety of conditions over the three days.

“Conditions wise, I think, we got the opposite to what we actually expected. In the build-up we didn’t have much of a chance to get on the river and trip a lot but the bit of decent water on day one made things easier than we were expecting.

“We were expecting a super low, super-hot conditions on day one but we got the opposite but then we got the opposite of that on day two. We got a hot day and not an excess amount of water so day two was some really tough racing,” Birkett added.

Results top 10 men

1.Andy Birkett/Lance Kime 2:19.15 7:52.09
2.Hank McGregor/Jasper Mocké 2:21.52
3.Sbonelo Khwela/Banetse Nkhoesa 2:19.15 8:03.02
4.Alan Houston/Andrew Houston (U23) 2:27.08 8:10.15
5.Len Jenkins/Siseko Ntondini 2:20.32 8:16.18
6.Murray Starr/Owen Gandar 2:20.36 8:16.22
7.Carl Folscher/Ant Stott 2:23.52 8:16.29
8.Shaun Rubenstein/Thulani Mbanjwa 2:32.22 8:25.02
9.Greg Louw/Adrian Boros (HUN) 2:25.24 8:32.08
10.Mmeli Cele/Khumbulani Nzimande (U23) 2:30.04 8:33.13