Jenna wards off fellow paddler to take win
Jenna Ward wins Berg River Canoe Marathon.

Toti paddler Jenna Ward (20) won the U23 women’s race at the 2013 Berg River Canoe Marathon on Saturday, 13 July.
The four-day long race covers 220km from Paarl to Velddrift in the Western Cape, and was a triumph for the young athlete.
‘It was an awesome feeling to win the Berg,’ said Jenna. ‘I have never won a major senior title so to win the Berg River Canoe Marathon was a great achievement for me.’ Having participated last year and come third, Jenna flew down a few days earlier, familiarising herself with the river, a tactic which paid off. Jenna is currently studying towards a Bachelor of Business Administration at Varsity College, and said ‘They have really nice hours. I either have three hours in the morning or three hours in the afternoon off so it leaves me with plenty of time to train in the day.
I had to do a lot of three hour paddles in training for the marathon, one during the week and again on Saturdays and Sundays.
It was all just about spending time in the boat. I ran two mornings during the week to keep my fitness up and trained six days of the week with one rest day.’
Despite all the training however, a Western Cape paddler Kirsten Penderis almost snatched victory away from her. ‘I thought the race was over,’ said Jenna. ‘When I got to the end of day two and heard she had a five-minute lead, I knew how hard I was going to have to paddle the next day to try catch that up.
It took me 25 kilometres on the third day to try get rid of her and I kept thinking I was going to have to settle for second.’ But Jenna re-took the lead during the 72km stretch of day three.
‘The last day there was a three kilometre portage and I was unsure of how fast Kirsten could run so I paddled hard for the first hour to get a three-minute lead and then at 38km she caught me and I just needed to stay with her until the end to win.’
Next up on the young athlete’s sporting agenda is the World Marathon Champs in Denmark in September, where Jenna will compete for the South African team. ‘I used the Berg Marathon as base training for the World Marathon Champs.’