SA Wild Water Championship and Spier Eerste River Challenge @ Stellenbosch 23 & 24 September
This year’s Spier Eerste River Challenge set to take place around Heritage Day promises to be bigger and better than ever before. Not only will the prize money be more than doubled but this year we have thrown in the SA Wild Water Championships as well.
We will kick off with the SA Wild Water Championships on Tuesday 23 September at 14:00 starting with the Individual Sprint Event over a distance of some 500m followed by the 8.3km Individual Classic Event to finish at Spier Estate. These two events are for rudderless K1 canoes (ICF Rules) only, and the male and female canoeist with the best combined times for both events will be SA Wild Water Champion 2014. But for good measure and to boost the numbers we have thrown in an Open Class for any type of rudderless canoe such as plastics. Prizes will be awarded to the first three in any grouping of rudderless canoes with five or more participants.
All of this will be followed by the 11.3km K1 Spier Eerste River Challenge on Heritage Day 24 September from Hangbrug to Spier. This is for normal K1s with rudders but A-grade paddlers only. This little dash is under 40 minutes – you cannot afford to miss a stroke if you are in contention for a good position. Last year’s top five were only separated by seconds: Louw van Riet (38:43); Thulani Mbanjwa (38:48); Ernest van Riet (38:53); Gavin White (39:42) and Sbonelo Khwela (39:46).
To top it all we will crown a King and Queen of the Spier Eerste Challenge – the male and female canoeist with the best combined times in ALL THREE events.
All these events are of course part of the e’Bosch River Festival where crowds taking part in the Stellenbosch heritage festivities will cheer canoeists on as they pass the main festival site on Heritage Day. Water levels are guaranteed through water release from dams upstream. See www.heritagefestival.co.za for more information.
On top of this our title sponsor Spier Wine Farms have made a special Family Package available for those who would like to stay at the Estate our finish and prize-giving venue. See http://www.heritagefestival.co.za/spier-eerste-river-challenge.html for more information.
Please contact Craig Mustard at mustardcraig@gmail.com for more information on the Wild Water events or Anthony Penderis the Spier Eerste Challenge Race Director at anthony.penderis@gmail.com for general information.
Next week’s news letter will have more info on prize money and entries.