Local paddlers perform superbly on a big stage
Gunther Grune said he enjoyed the nice clean cold water released from the Vaal Dam, the camaraderie from fellow paddlers, and the food and ice cold beer at the end.
Local paddlers Mohammed Ilyas Patel and Gunther Grune performed well in the Vaal River Canoe Marathon, the oldest canoe race in South Africa.
It attracts top paddlers from across the nation for two days of challenging river paddling on the iconic Vaal River.
Patel did well despite getting dunked as his boat turned over in the narrow ‘shute’ rapid. He finished in a time of 07:06:00 in the K1 category and was the seventh single to cross the finish line and third in the veteran category.
He said it was a long and tough race with a few tricky rapids. “I enjoyed the vibe and as always the view from the river is great, especially on a sunny and warm weekend. I was slightly undertrained but thanks to working together with other boats, managed to conserve energy by ‘rotating the pull’, particularly my teammate Clive Evans.”
Grune partnered with Pippa Martin and had an enjoyable race, finishing as the second mixed double boat in a time of 06:31:00.
Grune said it was always one of the tough races.
“This year we were blessed by the organisers and the water board that released 40 cumecs [cubic metre per second] of water from the dam. That made river rapids much more exciting and we had to use all our skills to get the boats through all the rocky sections. We had to be careful not to swim because that will cost you valuable time. The first 10km was very technical with all the rapids.”
The winners of the men’s K2 race were Rosebank-based pair, Clinton Cook and Luke Salmon. They finished the two-day race in
04:52:00. Sowetan paddlers Benjamin Mntonintshi and Siseko Ntondini took second place, four seconds later.
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