SA canoe sprinters eye Beijing
1 September 2006
"We are well on track to qualifying the biggest ever SA Olympic canoeing team for Beijing 2008." That's the word from the sprint committee at Canoeing South Africa after assessing the excellent results from the recent World Championships held at Szeged in Hungary.
The South African team raced into 10 finals, two of them being A finals. Based on the International Canoe Federation's qualifying criteria, this would have secured qualification for the next Olympic Games for six athletes. Only legendary sprinter Alan van Coller managed to qualify for the Athens Olympics.
"The results signal a new phase in South African sprint canoeing," said sprint committee head Gustav Radloff.
'A fantastic return'
"Our sprinters reached eight B
finals and two A finals, which is a fantastic return, and the first time ever that we have achieved this depth of quality results."
Shaun Rubenstein made two final, the 1000m A final, and the 500m B final where he posted a new personal best time of 1 minute 38.382 seconds, and a time that was faster than the winning time in the 500m A final.
Jen Hodson hit the headlines by racing into the women's 500m K1 A final, where she finished ranked as the seventh fastest woman in the world, representing a meteoric rise in the space of 18 months since she dedicated herself to a career as a sprinter. She also made the 200m B final.
'Most satisfying moment of my entire life'
"It was the most satisfying moment of my entire life," said Hodson.
"I wanted to make an A final in a world champs so badly, but didn't dare to dream about it. Making that A final, in front of 10 000 screaming spectators, has changed so much."
Hodson ousted
Germany's Nicole Reinhardt, last year's world champion, from the 500m A final, in what was seen as one of the shocks of the regatta.
"Beating her has changed my outlook drastically," said Hodson. "These girls are not invincible. My confidence has taken a boost and I no longer feel intimidated by them.
Ahead of target
"I am ahead of target, which is a great feeling," said Hodson. "My coach, Nandor Almasi, and I targeted a third in the B final as the standard for this year, so we are way ahead of that. I know I have plenty of areas where I can improve as well," she added.
She also stressed that having a more professional support structure and top class equipment made a big difference. "We even had a masseur on the tour, and I am convinced that it is those little things that make all the difference at the top level," Hodson said.
"The great thing is that we both feel that we have room for improvement," said Rubenstein. "My goal
for the year was to make the final in Szeged, which I achieved. That has really inspired me to work even harder during the next year, and I seriously believe that I can get amongst the medals."
Star performers
The other star performers were the women's K4 crew of Hodson, Carol Joyce, Michelle Eray and Nikki Mocke. The crew made its debut at world championship level in truly dramatic style by finishing fifth in the 500m B final.
"Anybody tracking his or her own paddling performance knows only too well that progress never seem to be linear," said Radloff. "You typically seem to 'stick' at certain levels and only progress once you manage to break through these levels. The recent World Champs results seem to signify that significant breakthroughs have been made by the boats in question.
"We can only hope that our remaining boats, who are close to making this breakthrough, also manage to achieve this by next year, in which case we will
field a really competitive team to the Olympics with some very real hopes of reaching the podium," Radloff reckoned.
Men's K4
The men's K4 crew of Ant Stott, Matt Boumann, Michael Arthur and Shaun Biggs remains committed to their goal of adding their names to the qualification list when it is finalised at next year's world champs. After competing in arguably the most competitive arena of global canoeing in Szeged, they have a perspective on their 200m and 500m B finals that is encouraging.
"We were not at our best, but we were really not that far off the pace," said Shaun Biggs. "We battled to get back to the level that we were at for the SA trials earlier in the year after most of us fell ill during the World Cup tour.
"We know what we have to do to qualify and we are confident that we can do it. In our group we have to beat the Australian and New Zealand K4 crews," Biggs added.
The SA men's K4 crew is also one of the lightest
competing at the highest level, and it battled going into a headwind against the heavier European crews.
Women's successes
Alexa Lombard and Donia Kamstra made their K2 B finals over 1000m, while Cape star Nikki Mocke made the 1000m K1 B final, where she finished fourth.
"It was a very exciting race with positions three to six being only one-and-a-half seconds apart," said Mocke.
The sprinters will enjoy a brief break from their rigorous training schedule before starting the cycle of preparations that will lead to the crucial Olympic qualifying at next year's World Championships in Duisburg in Germany.
Source: Canoeing South Africa
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