Swellendam — While the men’s race will be crowning a new crew as the Western Province K2 Champions on Sunday, the defending women’s combination of Kira Bester and Melanie van Niekerk are heavily favoured to retain the title they won a year ago at the two-day Breede River Canoe Marathon.
Bester and Van Niekerk were narrow winners over junior world champions Georgia Singe and Holly Smith last year, and come into the 2024 race from Robertson to Swellendam as firm favourites to retain the Western Cape doubles title.
Even though the dynamic young crew of Singe and Smith have yet to confirm their entry, Bester and Van Niekerk know they will surely once again be facing a tough battle, this time at least against Candice Starr and last year’s mixed doubles winner, Stephanie von der Heyde.
In the men’s race, 2023 champions Mark Keeling and Luke Jean Le Roux have split up for 2024, with Keeling teaming up with veteran Paul Marais. Despite the absence of the defending champions, the race looks like being a great battle with one of South Africa’s power crews, KZN’s Hank McGregor and Western Cape’s Uli Hart, the early favourtes.
Hart and McGregor will not be tempted to think they will have things all their own way with at least three other crews likely to ensure some interesting tactics in the lead group.
Clint Cook and recent Berg River Marathon winner Thomas Lovemore are sure to be in contention, while current SA K2 Champion Greg Louw and Heinrich van Rooyen will be expected to improve on their fourth position from 2023. Ron Benjano, who was unlucky to finish second with Lovemore last year after the pair took the wrong channel near the finish while leading, has teamed up with Nic Notten and are almost certain to feature strongly in the front group.
One crew which has been making waves this year and will be hoping to pull off a major surprise is that of youngsters Jared Shrimpton and Ryley Smith. A year of impressive results in junior categories was topped of a week ago when the Peninsula juniors were overall winners of the pre-Breede Robertson to Bonnievale event over Day 1 of the Breede route. While that will give the juniors a massive confidence boost, they will face a much stronger field this weekend.
The actions starts on Saturday morning at 10am at the McGregor Bridge just outside Robertson and Day 1 will finish at Bonnievale. Day 2 sees paddlers racing from Bonnievale to Kambati Tesort near Swellendam on Sunday.