THE women’s race of the KwaZulu-Natal Marathon Canoeing Champs at Camps Drift highlighted the strong form of three of the country’s top paddlers. Abby Solms looked solid in dealing with the challenge of Nikki Russell in the women’s K1 race, while La Lucia’s Kyeta Purchase was equally impressive winning the junior girls K1 title against a strong field, before teaming up with her regular K2 partner and Mt Edgecombe resident, Jenna’s Ward to win the overall senior women’s K2 title.

The day before Ward, Purchase’s MacSquad team mate, romped to the K1 Under 23 title as part of her preparations for the World Champs in September, where she is looking to go better than the two bronze medals she has won at that level in the past.

“We hadn’t actually planned to peak for this weekend, with SA champs three weeks away, so we will start a taper, which will be a relief because the training has been really hard,” said Ward.

She was excited by her impressive win the women’s K2 28km race with Purchase.

“We have been in the double together for two years now, and because she is in the same training squad, we are able to get into the double regularly, which really helps,” said Ward. “We would love go better than our fifth place at last year’s worlds.”

In the men’s race, Andy Birkett bagged the elusive double gold. With the SA Champs just three weeks away Birkett stamped his authority on the event by winning the K1 gold on Saturday in a ding-dong duel with Czech racer Jakub Adam, and then teamed up with Under 23 youngster Louis Hattingh to add the K2 gold to his haul, downing Adam and Michaelhouse junior Jean van der Westhuyzen.

The event served as another dress-rehearsal for the 2017 ICF Marathon World Champs.