Masters Cup kicks off canoe champs

CAMPS Drift will bask in the global canoeing spotlight next week as the week-long marathon canoeing showcase gets under way on Monday with the Masters Cup racing that traditionally precedes the ICF Canoe Marathon World Championships every year.

The opportunity to be a part of the event has spawned a huge entry of South African veteran and masters age group paddlers, making up around 80 percent of the just over 200 K1s that will be racing across the full range of age groups on Monday.

The focus shifts to K2 racing on the Tuesday, where an equally well supported entry of more than 140 K2 crews will contest the age group honours on the waters of Camps Drift.

With the local contingent made up of two official South African team members and dozens of individual entries, they will come up against paddlers from 17 other nations in the Masters Cup competition, many of them former medallists at previous editions of the world championships who still enjoy the competition and camaraderie of international competition.

The racing will follow the same format as the World Championships proper, but in the cases of the other age groups, the participants will be spared having to run the 100 metre long portage at the end of each lap.

Multiple Masters Cup title holder Lee McGregor has opted to race in an age group 15 years younger than his actual age group to be able to take on a particularly competitive group of paddlers entered for the 5054 year old category, including his choice opponent Oscar Chalupsky, the local surfski racer now based in Portugal, and who has cheekily entered as a Portuguese team member.

The programme also includes separate races for para-athletes and c-boats, or Canadian style canoes in which the paddler kneels rather than sits.

The week-long marathon racing showcase was meant to double as the African Championships in the various age categories, but the lack of any African entries outside of the huge South African entry has forced organisers to shelve that element of the championships, despite efforts to fund the travel and training of paddlers from emerging African marathon paddling countries.

The ICF Canoe Marathon World Championships will be held at Camps Drift in Pietermaritzburg from September 8-10.