Hank honoured as KZN sportsman of the year

Salt Rock’s world champion paddler, Hank McGregor, pipped the likes of Olympic swimming champ Chad le Clos and triathlon star Henri Schoeman to be awarded KwaZulu-Natal’s sportsman of the year on Saturday, November 14.

McGregor jetted off to Hong Kong on Saturday ahead of this weekend’s Dragon Run with good momentum under his belt after he overcame a poor start to clinch victory at Friday evening’s fifth race of the 2015 Illovo Suncoast Pirates Wall and Back Surfski Series while junior sensation Kyeta Purchase won the women’s race.

“I still have to get off to a good start at Pirates this year,” joked McGregor after having taken yet another big wave to the chest at the start of his race.

Fortunately for McGregor, his closest competitor Matthew Bouman also got hit by a wave and started slowly too.

“I managed to hit the front around the halfway mark going to the harbour wall and then managed to open up a bit of a gap by the turn buoy. There was a light headwind going there but very little swell coming back so it was basically just a hard slog both ways but it was great to get the win.”

The result hands McGregor his third race win of the series and with paddlers’ best five results counting towards the final series standings, the Euro Steel/Epic Kayaks racer now has yet another series title in sight.

“I would love to win the Wall and Back title again!” said McGregor, who hopes to fit in two more races in over the next few weeks.

McGregor’s frenetic calendar however sees him in a tricky race against time to secure another two results in the series’ remaining three races.

“I have got the Dragon Run in Hong Kong this weekend before I come back and race Ozzie Gladwin, 50 Miler, SA Surfski Champs and the Cape Point Challenge in the weeks after that, so I’ve got some pretty big weeks of racing ahead of me!”