Breede Favourites win it!

Hank McGregor and Dawid Mocke won the Canon Breede River Canoe Marathon, and with it the national K2 river championships, in a thrilling race on a flooded Breede river.

The race was ultimate decided by a tactical gamble in the closing minutes of the race.

Racing against two determined local crews of Heinrich Schloms and Ernest Van Riet and Paul Marais and Greg Barnard, McGregor and Mocke opted for a slightly wider channel shortly after negotiating the Swellendam weir, while the two Cape crews gambled on a smaller sneak channel on the inside.

"After finishing the first day we came and tripped the last six kilometres because we knew that is where the race would be decided," said McGregor. "The channel we took was wider but faster, and when we saw the Cape guys going for the sneak we went for it and got a twenty meter lead which we pushed to around eighty metres and then managed to keep that lead all the way to the finish."
The returning Olympians Jen Hodson and Carol Joyce wrapped up the women's title. The pair raced alone for virtually the entire race to secure the SA K2 women medals. Joyce said afterwards that their title would have more meaning had they been able to race Alexa Cole and Donia Kamstra, who elected to race in the open class and were not included in the closed women's race that carried tough rules preventing the women's crews from riding the slip waves of male paddlers around them.