Easter Weekend had 3 major Surf Ski Races.

First up on Friday the 10th April was the Nelson Mandela Bay Surf Ski World Series race. Well done to Michele (the Head Coach) for winning the Womens event and finishing 13th Overall, and to Kyle Harris of Plett, who finished 20th overall and 2nd in his category. It was a fun course, of roughly 25km, with both headwind and downwind sections.

Then on Saturday 11th was the Plett Penny Pinchers SA Single Ski event. Michele won the Women’s SA Single Ski title, and finished 19th Overall. A big Well Done to Dave Rissik for finishing in a respectable 41st position. All that hard training has really paid off, and we are looking forward to helping Dave achieve his next big goal. The race course was pretty tough, with the wind mainly coming from head on, or side on. The downwind sections never really had the legnth to generate big runs. The Keurbooms River Mouth provided lots of entertainment, and ended up changing the race results a bit! Young Grant van der Walt (from Inland!) showed the older guys a thing or two, and ended up winning the title ahead of the very experienced HAnk McGregor, Matt Bouman, and Dawid Mocke.

On Sunday, it was the SA Doubles Champs. The race course was from Plett to Nature’s Valley, and you couldn’t ask for a more scenic course. Michele teamed up with Carol Joyce to win the Double Ski title. Well done to Dawid Mocke and Matt Bouman for taking the men’s title ahead of Hank McGregor and Grant van der Walt.

Photo’s to follow.

The Bulls Team of Karl Platt and Stefan Sahm walked away with top honours as overall winners of this year’s exciting Absa Cape Epic presented by adidas. With a four minute and 48 second lead time on Trek-Brentjens (placed second overall) at the start this morning, they crossed the finish line in 4th position today together with the Songo.info team of Christoph Sauser and Burry Stander. They were welcomed by hundreds of enthusiastic spectators who applauded the exhausted teams at the final finish line of this year’s event, hosted at the Lourensford Wine Estate in Somerset-West.
The South African team of Kevin Evans and David George (MTN Energade) finished in 4th place (28:41:00) overall and won the Leader Jersey of Best African Team. Songo.info’s Christoph Sauser and Burry Stander, who set the pace for this year’s race and won 5 of the 7 stages as well as the prologue, finished in 6th place overall (29:08:41) despite a 1hr time penalty.

First to cross the finish line in the Ladies was the Absa Ladies team of Hanlie Booyens and Sharon Laws. They won all of the stages as well as the prologue and completed the race in 37:18:20. They were followed by Robyn Adendorff and Sarah van Heerden (WSP – Jeep Girls) in an overall time of 42:19:45. In third place in an overall time of 43:41:39 were Nolene Saunders and Sarah Wielopolska of the Tread Magazine Ladies team.

Says winner, Hanlie Booyens (Absa Ladies): “We tried to ride as hard as possible in order to compete with the whole field, not only the other ladies. I felt a bit tired the last two days, but Sharon was going strong. I must admit I also enjoyed this year’s route much more than previous years. It was real mountain biking.”

For more race news, go to www.cape-epic.com

In other sports news, the IOC has decided to scrap the Olympic Torch relay. Due to the problems encountered in Beijing last year, from now on the Torch Relay will take place in the host country only.

For more about this see http://www.sport24.co.za/Content/OtherSport/262/3ce84c7b00e44c69add6edb7d0a15a66//IOC_scraps_Olympic_torch_relay

Stewart surfs to second title

Lauren Fitzsimons, Wednesday, 25 March 2009

Murray Stewart has continued his fine start to 2009 by taking out the open surf single ski title at the 2009 Australian Surf Lifesaving Championships last week in Perth.

Stewart, who will later this year race at his first senior canoe sprint world championships after being selected on the Australian team earlier this month, transferred his success to the ocean to lead home an impressive field on the beaches of Scarborough, Perth.

The Manly paddler proved too strong for 2008 Beijing Olympians, Tate Smith (Northcliffe) and Clint Robinson (Maroochydore), with these two paddlers crossing the line in second and third places respectively. Robinson is still considered the king of surf ski paddling, but was unable to add to his national title trophy cabinet this year.

Tate Smith joined fellow Northcliffe members to take victory in the Single ski realy ahead of the Manly club featuring Murray Stewart.   

In the mixed double ski, Stewart combined with fellow canoe sprint paddler Jo Brigden-Jones to finish in fourth place. Northcliffe continued their fine form in the ski events, placing first and third in the event. Nick Crilly, a former canoe sprint senior team member teamed up with Flora Manciet to claim the national title, while Rachel Simper, another ex senior team member, finished in third place with Tate Smith.

In the women’s open single ski, junior canoe sprint paddler Casey Leo-Litzow shocked the field to claim first place. Leo-Litzow, who also paddles for Currumbin Creek Canoe Club, proved too strong for the rest of the field taking the win. Youngster Hailey McGinty (Maroochydore) who was recently named to the U23 Sprint team, finished a commendable 7th overall.

The women’s double ski final resulted in a home-beach win for Scarboro’s Ruth Highman and Jane Humphrys.

The unlucky pairing were Manly’s Naomi Flood and Jo Brigden-Jones, who led the field from the start to all but within touching distance of the finish line.

It was then that Highman and Humphrys and Northcliffe’s Kelly Jury and Kristyl Smith caught a wave to sneak ahead and relegate the Manly pair to third.

In other results, Bernadette Wallace helped Burleigh Head Mowbray Park A to a third place in the women’s open single ski relay.

ECSTATIC ECKSTEIN’S BOARD TRIUMPH

Ironman king Shannon Eckstein is known of his unflappable personality but spectators at Scarborough Beach today saw another side of the champion.

Eckstein was almost reduced to tears after taking out the open board race, one of the few events to elude him over the years.

Four times previously Eckstein had been well positioned to win the board but had lost and he celebrated with gusto as he finally crossed the line in first place.

With pursuers arriving quickly on a wave, he bunny-hopped his board across the bank to take the gold medal ahead of defending champion Daniel Shade (Kurrawa) and Michael Saal (Currumbin Beach).

Eckstein was named man of the carnival, winning six gold medals and one silver across the week.

The event further reinforced the close links between canoe sprint and surf lifesaving and promises a continued bond which serves to strengthen both disciplines in the future.

See http://www.canoe.org.au/?Page=16582  or http://www.aussies.slsa.asn.au/2009/news_detail.asp?id=168 for more.

Garmin Wartrail

This is one crazy race! It consists of a three day staged event and involves a hike of 57km on day one, a 132km mountain bike on day 2 and finally a 62km canoe down the Orange river on day 3.

Jeanie Bomford won the women’s event (and was an incredible 4th overall!) and Andre Gie won the men’s. Here’s a race report courtesy of Hanno Smit of the McCain Adventure Addicts squad: http://www.mccainaddicts.co.za/news.html#26mar200902

MultiCoach athlete’s have some races looming. First up is the Nelson Mandela Bay World Cup Surf Ski Race on the 10th April. Website address is www.worldseries.zports.co.za  Then it is the Penny Pinchers Plett Easter Race, which is also a World Series race and doubles up as the South African Single Ski Champs on 11th Aril, followed by the SA Double Ski Champs on the Sunday 12th April. It’s going to be great to see how MultiCoach’ers are going to perform, and to see if  the training plan is working.

Winter is approaching here in South Africa, with the early morning sunlight arriving a bit later than normal! Lunch time training is looking like the way forward.
In Mountain Biking news, the Absa Cape Epic is on Stage 5 already, a 111km day with 2233m of climbing. Stage 4 provided much drama, with race leaders Burry Stander and Christof Sauser having mechanical problems and losing their yellow jersey. Follow the race live (and you can track the athletes progress and heart rates) here http://www.cape-epic.com/live/ridertracking.php

That’s all for now. Will post race results as they happen.

Photo by Jon Vellacot/Gameplan Media

I have just returned from an epic weekend on the Umzimkulu river. Raced the Drak Challenge. The organisors really go out of their way to make it a super fun event, and real vaue for money entry.

My race went well. Day 1 was quire low and bony, but my awesome RIVER VAJDA from Knysna Racing Kayaks handled the rocks with no problems. After a pretty solid first day, I finished with Carol and Robyn. So the plan on Day 2 was to hang with the girls and follow them down all the rapids as I had never been on this stretch of river before. Unfortuately, both of them swam in the first few km’s of the race, leaving me to pick my own way down the river! The water level had risen thanks to overnight rain, making for a really fun day.

My navigation down the pretty technical river went really well, with no mistakes on my part. The rapids were surprisingly big, but really entertaining, making the 38km pass by quite quickly. My River Vajda saved me from a few potential swims with it’s great stability, I really am falling in love with this boat! Robyn ended up getting away from Carol in the last part of the race, with Hilary Pitchford coming in 4th. Well done to Ant on his 6th victory in this race. Len Jenkins was 2nd, with a “watch me I’m coming” Grant VD Walt in 3rd, after a broken paddle on Day 1.

It must have been one of the most competitive women’s fields ever assembled in a South African race. It’s really positive to see the standard of women’s paddling and I am very excited for the future of the sport, as most of the women are pretty young still.

Here’s a link to the race website: www.drak.co.za Well done to Tex Turton and all his organisors for a fantastic event. I will definately be back in 2010 to defend my title.