Dusi contenders ready for the challenge
Top canoeists made their mark in Dusic Canoe Marathon seeding races at the weekend.
PADDLER, Sbonelo Khwela, bagged two important wins in key Dusi seeding races at the weekend to show that he has shrugged off a week of setbacks and proved that his dreams of a Dusi K1 title this year are well on track.
Khwela, who won his first Dusi title last year in the K2 race with Euro Steel’s Andy Birkett, first grabbed the overall honours in a well-supported TWK Dash 'n Crash race on Saturday that takes in the first eight kilometres of the Dusi course, before winning Sunday’s Campbell's Farm to Dusi Bridge race, a key Dusi indicator which covers the second half of the Dusi first stage including the tough Guinea Fowl portage.
The brace of wins are a welcome boost for the Euro Steel/Red Bull athlete who was forced to rest for much of last week after picking up a shoulder injury from overtraining before his local training ground, Shongweni Dam, was also ruled a no-go zone after a sewerage spill from one of its feeder rivers rendered it unusable by canoeists.
In the popular TWK Dash 'n Crash K1 race Khwela was locked in a needle tussle with defending Dusi K1 champion Lance Kime and the duo entered the tight Musson's Weir rapid side by side. Kime got entangled in vegetation in the exit, paving the way for Khwela to scamper away to the finish line less than a kilometre away and claim the win.
On Sunday a big field of Dusi hopefuls took advantage of the Henley Dam water release from the day before to race the Campbell's Farm to Dusi Bridge race, which is a good pre-Dusi form indicator as it includes hallmark portages and some technical river sections.
Khwela managed to hold off Build it/Williams Hunt’s Thulani Mbanjwa, one of the so-called “Fantastic Four” being touted as potential Dusi champions this year, to claim his second scalp of the weekend.
The racing on the weekend did not include five times World Marathon Champion Hank McGregor, who won the SA K1 title on the Two-Day Klip race in Gauteng, and four times Dusi Champ Andy Birkett who opted not to race these races.
On the women's front Laura O'Donaghue showed how far advanced her Dusi training is by winning the TWK Dash 'n Crash K1 title and comfortably taking the Campbell's Farm to Dusi Bridge race in an excellent 23rd position overall.
The weekend's races were also a triumph for Martin Dreyer's Computershare Change a Life Academy paddlers who dominated the top ten standings in all of the races, boding well for a strong Dusi performance from the Valley of a Thousand Hills based outfit.
Change a Life’s Mpilo Zondi took the TWK Dash ‘n Crash K1 junior’s race ahead of Michaelhouse’s Alan Houston while Msawenkosi Mtolo took the Under 18 honours in Sunday’s longer race with Houston again runner up.
The 64th edition of the Dusi Canoe Marathon takes place from Camps Drift in Pietermaritzburg to Blue Lagoon in Durban from Thursday 19 to Saturday 21 February. Visit: www.dusi.co.za
