I am very satisfied with the way my weekend went at the SA marathon champs held in Plettenburg Bay. Even though we had dreadfull weather the racing was very intense with all the top marathon paddlers in South Africa ready to give the race a full go. The k1 race broke up into four boats at the first portage (Len Jenkins, Ant Stott, Hank Mcgregor and myself). Ant, Hank and I have all won World Champs before and Len has a World Championship 5th place to his very successfull career so far, so as you can imagine it was a very tough race. Every portage was very fast, but none of us gave an inch and besides for one or two attemps to break the group up on the water, the group stayed in tact untill the end sprint which I managed to win from Len in 2nd, Hank in 3rd and Ant in 4th.

The K2 race was a lot easier with Ant and Myself breaking away from the field with Hank and Grant Vd Walt. The two of us stayed together the whole way untill the end sprint when Ant and I managed to pull away from Hank and Grant. Ant showed a huge amount of courage as he injured his leg on the portages in the K1 race the day before and was really struggling to run during the K2 race, but he really dug deap and came through very strong. On the water Ant and I feel great and I really look forward to racing with him at Worlds this year.

My weekend was made even more special by the fact that I had my beautiful girlfriend and parents there to support me. Its always great to be able to share exciting times with the people you love. Thanks to Brandon for seconding me, Marcus for coaching me and to everyone else on the banks for supporting me throughout both races.

I am very pleased to say that I have been drug tested twice in the last 2 weeks by the South Africa Institute for Drug Free Sport. Drug Free Sport SA has definately lifted the bar in terms of their aproach to catching the cheats that are ruining sport. Hopefully this is a world wide phenomenon and drugs will finally be driven out of sport.

Tomorrow I head off to Plett to compete in the South African marathon champs. Its been 3 years since the last time I raced a marathon event, so hopefully I still remember all the little tricks to marathon paddling. The race favourites have to be Ant Stott and Cam Schoeman, the K2 World Champions from last year as well as Grant Van Der Walt, the silver medalist from last years World Junior marathon champs. When you add Hank Mcgregor, Len Jenkins and the Louw brothers to the mix, the race looks like its going to be very exciting. Marathon racing is all about group tacticts, portages and lasting for more than 2 hours, so hopefully I can get it all right and be in the mix to hopefully make the podium.  I will be racing the K1 and K2 with Ant Stott. In order for me to be selected for the SA team to compete at the World Champs in Portugal this year I must finish in the top two. This is the criteria for all the paddlers so everyone will be in good form and racing hard… This makes me very excited!!!

I raced the final world cup of the 2009 season this weekend and I am really pleased how well things went. As I mentioned in my last post, I raced in the 200m and 500m K2 with Mike Arthur and I am so excited with how well we go together. We had a brilliant 200m K2 final and finished 2nd just behind the Hungarian crew and then we came in 4th in the 500m K2 behind the Hungarians, Norwegians and Germans, after leading the race for the first 250m. Mike and I managed to beat some really strong and experienced K2 crews over the weekend which is very exciting since this was our first international race together and leading up to the event we had only trained in the K2 4 times. We are both very motivated to work hard at this K2 combo in the future. I also raced the 1000m K1 which never went so well. For some reason I have been battling to find a fast rhythm in my K1 and I found myself scratching at the back of the field in my semi final and missed out on making a final. I am really glad the K2 went so well, to pick me up from my K1 disappointment. The races this weekend were made even more exciting because my brother Cedric and my cousin Lance flew over from the UK to watch me racing. I haven’t seen them for a while so it was great to be able share such exciting results with them. I am flying home this evening and will start some marathon preparation for our national selections which takes place in just under 3 weeks. I will be racing the K1 and K2 with Ant Stott. I have been away for 3 weeks now so I am really looking forward to seeing my girlfriend Ruvenna, family and friends again. In saying that, I have had a really great time on tour this year. We have a great bunch of guys on the team and there was never a dull moment. Thanks to everyone for making it such an awesome tour. The pics above are of us crossing the finishing line in the 200m and 500m K2 final.

Mike and I are finally getting time to train in the k2 together leading up to the World Cup in Szeged. We are still a very new combination, having only trained together four times now, but we combine very well together. Mike has been following my technique really well and theboat feels very smooth. The pictures above were taken during the session this afternoon.

I have spent the last week in Budapest at Csepel Canoe Club. Its been really fun having a big squad here especially with the squad clowns, Greg ‘Cradock’ Louw and Len ‘Dobrei’ Jenkins. We have had some really good sessions on the water, even though we have had some tough conditions with really strong wind. One of my best sessions was 6×300m races with 500m Olympic Champion, Kenny Wallace. The session was really good and as you can imagine the quality was really high. Tomorrow we will train with the Ausies again, but I will be in the K2 with Mike Arthur for the session. Mike Arrived yesterday to join the squad and we will be focusing hard on getting our K2 500m up to speed before the Szeged World Cup next weekend.

Tomorrow we will be going to Champs Bar to watch the super 14 final… My bloed will definately be blou tomorrow at 5:30pm!!!