The South African canoeing team to the Marathon World Championships have started assembling in the Norwegian city of Bergen, with every intention of bettering their massive medal haul from last year’s event in Spain.
Capetonian Ant Stott is fiercely determined to improve on the bronze medal that he won in Valladolid at last year’s World Championships, in which Durban ace Hank McGregor won the world title. Stott has been in superb form this season and his recent win in the Scottburgh-to-Brighton ski race reflected that he is in top shape.
”I am feeling good, and really keen to go at least one better than last year’s third,” said Stott. The other K1 berth in the senior men’s race will be taken up by Gauteng-based Shaun Rubenstein, who has made a meteoric rise to international competition in 2004.
After a season of sprint training, Rubenstein proved that he is in excellent marathon shape by winning the South African Championships, a week after returning from the Olympic sprint qualifier in Poland. Later in the season, he made his mark internationally by medalling in the Duisburg 3 000m final against a very powerful field, again providing a strong indicator of his long-distance form.
Stott and Rubenstein will make an interesting partnership in the singles race, where tactics and collaboration play an integral role. Stott has a wealth of experience at this level and has offered to support Rubenstein, in return for which Rubenstein’s flatwater speed will be just as useful to Stott.
The pair will team up together in the men’s K2 race, along with the Cape crew of Gert and Chris van Deventer.
Alexa Lombard and Nicki Mocke will spearhead the women’s challenge in singles, as well as the doubles, where they will team up with Kim Rew and Donia Kamstra respectively. Both doubles combinations are formidable, with the Dusi winning crew of Lombard and Kamstra having won the South African Marathon Championships in empathic style in late May.
Lombard will be looking to stamp her authority on her races, after a number of previous experiences at the World Championships in which she has been jockeyed off the front bunch by European women and finished just out of medal contention.
The junior team are also strong, and with a reputation to protect. South African boys have twice won silver medals in the singles race in the past two years and the classy likes of KwaZulu-Natal South Coast star Marc Holtzhauzen are eager to repeat, if not better these feats.
Perhaps their best chance will come in the K2 race, where Holtzhausen will team up with Jonno Bennett, alongside another tried-and-tested combination of Erhard Joubert and Ryan Courtney.
The junior girls’ challenge will see Tarryn Brown and Kirsty Wood racing the singles and then teaming up in the K2 race along with Kelly Howe and Tiffany Kruger.
The World Championships will be preceded by the annual Masters Cup event, which sees racers in the Veteran and Master and Grand Master age groups battling it out over the same course, and serves as a dress rehearsal for the world championships.
The event was shaken by the unexpected announcement that all the portages had been removed from the Masters Cup events. However, this was restored to the original format after strong protests from several nations.
South Africa have a proud history at the Master’s Cup and have dominated the medal haul for the past few years.
Andre Collins, Alan Hold and Lee McGregor, together with Len Jenkins Snr — who were all gold medallists at last year’s Masters Cup — will hope to lead another concerted charge on the bulk of the master’s medals.
The racing will take place on the fjords around Nordaasvannet in what promises to be glorious hot and sunny conditions. The Masters Cup takes place on Thursday and Friday, after which the World Championships span Saturday and Sunday. — Sapa