Defending champs in prime position after Opening Day

They took a commanding lead of more than four minutes over the nearest rivals, while Abby Adie and Anna Adamová claimed the early advantage in the women’s encounter.

McGregor, fresh off claiming his third Flatwater Marathon World Championships title, and his regular K2 partner, van der Walt, overcame a poor start on a choppy and wind-swept Grassridge Dam to claw their way back through the field to claim day one’s spoils.

“I was really impressed with how good we felt together and how well we clicked today considering the last time we were in a boat together was SA Champs,” said McGregor. “I’m really happy to be leading going into tomorrow!

“Hank (McGregor) drove really well and, other than a bit of bad luck across the dam, it was a pretty faultless day for us.”

With a howling early morning wind creating large waves at the 82km race’s starting point, many crews McGregor and van der Walt included were caught unawares as they set off across the dam without their splash covers in place.

The fancied international crew of Thomas slovak and Tobias Bong were the biggest casualty on the dam, and fell to last place in the seeded A batch by the time they reached the dam wall portage.

The stage’s second place finishers, Ben Biggs and Alasdair Glass, provided one of the day’s popular fairytale performances.

For Biggs the duo’s remarkable achievement, having been given little chance of even claiming a top ten amidst this year’s quality field by many critics, was the best possible present he could have asked for as he celebrated his 23rd birthday.

“Never could I have ever imagined this!” exclaimed a beaming Biggs afterwards. “We’ve been going quietly nicely in a couple of races recently but having really got any really exciting results so this really is awesome.

“We decided to put our splashies on before we even got going on the dam and that really paid off because we just took off compared to many of the others who had taken in water. That meant we had a clear pathway at the take out and along the portage which makes a huge difference and definitely set us up for our second place finish.”

With competition for places rife among the ladies crews, it was Adie and Adamová who found themselves in the driving seats going into day two after they opened up a two minute seventeen second lead over second placed Robyn Kime and Bridgitte Hartley.

“Every portage Robs (Kime) and Bridg (Hartley) closed in on us though so we kept having to work hard to break away again,” daid Adie. “I’m really chuffed we went so well today though, especially with Anna (Adamová) having hardly paddled in the river for quite a while. We were just so stable.”

– Sapa