Enter Berg River marathon

AS the first rains of the winter drench the Western Cape, paddlers have started entering this year’s Berg River Canoe Marathon which will be raced from 3 to 6 July, with younger elite racers throwing their hats into the ring early on.

As the early bird entry process closed at the end of April over thirty entries had been processed, but, as the rules allow, there were few clues about teams and partnerships likely between the individual entries.

The Berg River Canoe Marathon started an innovative team racing format last year that saw the top elite paddlers pairing up and racing under team tactics for the four days and 240km from Paarl to Velddrif, a race that was won by local stalwart Graeme Solomon and his Hungarian partner Adrián Boros.

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After the positive feedback from the debut of the team racing format, the same rules will determine the competitive categories for the upcoming Berg, and a year after it’s introduction, the elite racers are far wiser to the subtleties of team racing tactics.

Solomon embraced the team format last year and after scooping the Hungarian as a partner, they set out to dominate the race from the get-go. He said that the unique demands of the ultra-endurance canoeing event forged special relationships in the heat of competition.

While the racers vie for the honours and podium places in the team competition, the Berg has a loyal core of paddlers that thrive on the solo challenge, reflected by the quick entries from some of the race’s evergreen veterans and masters like Taxi Kotze, Rene Boehm, Brian Whiteford, Ralph Teulings, Franscois Loedolff and Gordon Laing, it was also little surprise to see the names of Edgar Boehm and Giel van Deventer on the list of confirmed entries after the close of the early bird process.

Normal entries are now being taken until Wednesday 19 June.

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