Young sprint stars take step forward at World Champs

They came close to making the A finals on several occasions and in the process cut their teeth in top-level competition.

Under the watchful eye of coach Craig Mustard and with the added guidance of Olympic bronze medallist Bridgitte Hartley, the 12-strong team finished 35th out of 72 competing countries overall and was the highest-ranked African country, finishing ahead of Egypt, Tunisia, Mozambique, Morocco and Senegal.

Junior competitor Louis Hattingh and under-23 Chrisjan Coetzee’s efforts helped the South African men finish 26th out of 60 countries, while Esti van Tonder shone brightest for the women, helping them to 21st out of 56 nations.

“Our good results from last year’s ICF Junior and Under-23 Canoe Sprint World Championships in Niagara, Canada, where we qualified for a lot of B finals and had a best result of a third at this level, set a high standard for the 2014 World Champs squad,” said Mustard.

“I believe the 2014 team was the strongest team that South Africa has ever sent to compete at these championships and so we had high hopes of achieving our goals of making it into at least one A final as well as finishing in the top nine in the world overall,” he added.

Hattingh narrowly missed out on qualification for the coveted A final in the K1 junior men’s 1000m. His semi-final time of 3 minutes 34.669 seconds fell just short but it would have earned him fifth place overall in the A final had he posted it then.

The Maritzburg-based star, however, rose once more in the B final to finish second, just 0.648 seconds behind the winner.

In the K1 under-23 men’s 200m, Coetzee finished third in the B final, having also fallen short of A final qualification by 0.096 seconds when he posted a time of 34.915 in his semi-final, good enough for seventh place in the A final.

Van Tonder, like Coetzee, took on two separate events at the competition with her efforts in the K1 under-23 women’s 500m yielding another B final top three for the South African team.

After finishing third in her heat, Van Tonder’s semi-final time of 1.56.230 would have seen her finish fourth in the A final had she qualified for this. As it was, the Pretoria flyer finished second in her B final.

Kayla de Beer was the fourth member of the touring party to reach the B finals, finishing fifth in the K1 women’s junior 200m, while Van Tonder and the combination of Calvern Clark and Cameron Hudson reached the C finals in the K1 women’s under-23 200m and K2 men’s under-23 200m respectively.

While “oh so close” may appear to have been the theme of the trip, Mustard was still pleased with the tour’s outcome and the efforts of the paddlers.

“It was great to see the great team spirit within the squad and the focus each athlete had on achieving their goals from the moment they arrived in Hungary,” said Mustard.

“The team did really well against such fast competition and it’s really exciting to see how each year our sprinters are closing the gap on the rest of the world. Overall, this was a great tour and I believe we are only going to get better each year.”

– Sapa