The Gauteng paddlers enjoyed the Dusi training on the fuller Klip River, on November 30, in a 34km race hosted by Florida Lake Canoe Club, in Meyerton.
The race included a 2.5km section where they practised their portage, carrying their boats along a dirt road next to the river.
The Gauteng Canoe Union is proud of its integration programmes, which have proved tremendously successful, and the proof is that the top seven paddlers were young athletes who dominated the race.
The youngsters took the top three positions, the top u-23 podium, and also the top u-18 and u-16 junior podium positions.
Colin Ledwaba, a member of the development youth programme at Victoria Lake Canoe Club (VLC), finished second in the u-18 category, in three hours.
Ledwaba was writing his matric this year, at Germiston High School, and hopes to be fit enough for the Dusi in February.
With the 65th Dusi River race scheduled for mid-February 2015, paddlers are using the fuller rivers, after the rains, to do some serious training for the world’s largest canoe marathon endurance event, from Pietmaritzburg to Durban.
The inaugural winner of the race, Dr Ian Player, passed away at the age of 87, over the weekend of November 29 and 30.
Player was one of the first adventurers to scout and complete this section of river, winning the race in 1964, when competitors used handmade boats, fashioned from wood and canvas.
With no dams or water releases in those days, and the easily damaged heavy boats, the paddlers had to carry them around many rapids, hence the endurance reputation of the race.
Despite the fact that the current race is still a serious endurance event, where paddlers have to carry their boats around specified rapids, in the Dusi tradition, there is nevertheless much more water available from dam water releases, making the river race much more fun.
