McGregor powers to victory at the Tracker Highlands Challenge
Despite a rare swim towards the end of the first day's racing, paddling
supremo Hank McGregor has been crowned the SA K1 River Champion for 2006
after dominating the Tracker Highlands Challenge canoe race (August 19 and
20). He has now won all but one race he has competed in this year.
His winning time of 4hrs 23: 35 for the 68 kilometre, two-day event was
almost three minutes ahead of second placed Jacques Theron and a further
minute ahead of third placed Clinton Pretorius.
The ladies race was won by Abbey Medeima in a time of 4hrs 51: 28, followed
by Antje Manfroni some eight minutes behind with the impressive junior,
Bianca Beavitt, claiming a well deserved third spot.
The two-day Grade-A race, held in Bethlehem, was packed with drama with
almost 20 boats being unable to finish the race. Despite the lack of rapids,
the narrow, tree-lined route combined with a powerful river flow made
paddling deceptively difficult. If you add this to the freezing water
conditions and an unseasonable spell of mist on the second morning,
conditions were tough for the competitors. Still, almost 220 paddlers made
it safely down the picturesque Liebenbergsvlei - a "new" river which flows
down from the Katse Dam in Lesotho and feeds into the Vaal as part of the
Lesotho Highlands Water project.
After being voted the Best Organised Race of 2004 and 2005, the 2006 event
was stepped up a notch as Tracker doubled its sponsorship to more than R200
000 which included prize money of some R80 000. This helped to lure a top
field to the event which included Mike Harris, Loveday Zondi, Michael
Mbanjwa, and the pair of Sven Bruss and Darryl Bartho who recently finished
first and second respectively in the K1 race at the much vaunted 135km Avon
Descent Canoe Marathon in Australia.
As part of the company's newly launched Corporate Social Investment
programme, Tracker sponsored several development paddlers from both the
Soweto and Paarl Canoe Clubs to participate in the race and made a donation
to a local Bethlehem charity.
Says Tracker's Managing Director, Pierre de Clerk: "We're very excited by
the success of this year's race which attracted almost a hundred paddlers
more than last year. In fact, the field virtually doubled which is an
incredible achievement for any sports event and a clear indication of the
growing popularity of the race. We've chosen to lend our support to paddling
because of its clean image, positive association with nature and the fact
that it is often enjoyed in the more remote areas of our beautiful country -
areas which Tracker is proud to have covered by its satellite and radio
recovery network."
Joint organiser and co-host of the race, Colin Simpkins from the Dabulamanzi
Club in Gauteng, believes that the Tracker Highlands Challenge is well
positioned to become one of the country's leading paddling events attracting
an elite field of paddlers.
"Together with our partnership with the Bethlehem Canoe Club, I believe The
Tracker Highlands Challenge is fast becoming one of the country's premier
races. We have all the right ingredients: a committed sponsor, a challenging
river which flows every day of the year and widespread buy-in from South
Africa's top paddlers."
