South African canoeing’s top speedsters come together over the next three days at Roodeplaat Dam in Gauteng to find out who the fastest of the fast are, with a mix of young talent taking on some big reputations at the South African Sprint Canoeing Championships.
The regatta on Friday, Saturday and Sunday is the first national championships under the newly rebranded PaddleSport SA federation, and also the start of a new Olympic cycle after some exciting results from Paris 2024.
Heading the list of big names is 25-year-old Hamish Lovemore, who stunned the flatwater sprinting world in Paris last year by winning the B final in the Olympic 1 000m K1 event. For a paddler to emerge from a river racing and marathon background to effectively finish within the top 10 at the Olympic sprint regatta so quickly was a surprise. On the back of that performance, the South African paddling community is hoping that a strong four-year programme dedicated to sprinting can take Lovemore to a medal in Los Angeles in 2028.
The Durban resident is expected to leave his rivals trailing in his K1 events, with his Olympic partner, Andy Birkett from the Eastern Cape and KZN’s Kyle Friedenstein the most likely rivals to claim the other medals.
Lovemore and Birkett resurrect their Olympic partnership in the K2 events and will be strongly favoured to secure the gold medals in all the doubles races they take part in. Their biggest challenge in the K2 events are likely to come from the pairing they beat in the trials for Paris, Mike Arthur and Shaun Rubenstein.
Many of the women’s gold medals look likely to end up in the trophy cabinets of the Paris 2024 crew of Esti Olivier and Tiffany Koch, but there are a couple of interesting combinations that could cause an upset. World surfski champion Kira Bester will be joining forces with fellow U23 ocean racing star Jade Wilson, while U23s Georgia Singe and Saskia Hockly combine in an exciting young pairing that has a pedigree that includes multiple world championship medals in marathon and surfski.
The K1 women’s races are likely to be dominated by Olivier as she begins the next cycle toward her long-term goal of the the Los Angeles Olympics, while Alexa Godden, Koch, Bester, Wilson, Hockly and Singe could also be contenders over the various distances.
A full programme of events over 200m, 500m 1 000m and 5 000m for paddlers ranging from U8 juniors up to over 35 masters will give spectators a full weekend of action on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
Image: Esti Olivier starts her journey to LA 2028 at the SA Sprint Canoe Championships at Roodeplaat Dam this weekend. (CSA/Gameplan)
