SA Sprint Champs

Gauteng paddlers Shaun Rubenstein and Jen Hodson walked away with the top honours from the long weekend’s Mazda SA Sprint Championships at Nagle Dam outside Pietermaritzburg, and both content that their plans to challenge on the world stage later in the year are well on track.

Rubenstein was deservedly the Men’s Victor Ludorum, having won all the K1 titles on offer, as well as the blue ribbon 500m K2 gold medal with Olympian Alan van Coller. It was the first time that Rubenstein has raced all the races as a senior, and he was excited at his results, and more importantly, he felt that his conditioning was ahead of where he expected it to be.

”I really feel like my base training has been solid, and I am really not that tired, despite racing every race I could enter. So it feels like ‘Mission Accomplished’ for the national champs, and I can focus on the coming World Cup season with some confidence,” said Rubenstein.

Jen Hodson took Victrix Ludorum title, after three days of racing that reaffirmed her decision to relocate to Gauteng and train with coach Nandor Almasi full-time. She also swept the boards in the 100m, 500m and 200m races, and enjoyed a competitive K2 partnership with Carol Joyce.

The KZN K4 combination of Matt Bouman, Ant Stott, Shaun Biggs and Michael Arthur were also impressive, even if they did dilute their performance by racing a lot of K2 races as well. Stott and Arthur won the key 1000m K2 gold, while Biggs and Arthur took the 200m title, however this came at a price.

The highly respected K4 was dumped in the 200m final by the untested crew of Shaun Rubenstein, Alan van Coller, Nick Burden and Cape coach Robbie Hegedus. Stott was adamant that their competitiveness had been blunted by their decision to tackle a full programme of K2 races as well.

”Its been tough,” admitted Stott after having dig deep to take the 500m K4 gold, from another pick-up crew on the Saturday. “There is no doubt that the K2 races took a lot out of us, but we felt that this event was part of our broader training, and we decided to race more than usual.”

The most popular result of the weekend, which was raced in two days of glorious weather before the cold front arrived on Sunday, was the 500m K2 gold that Alan van Coller won with Shaun Rubenstein.

Van Coller hung up his paddles after the Athens Olympics, and was baited out of retirement by Rubenstein, to race on a largely social level. However it was abundantly clear that he is still in great shape, and has lost none of his competitiveness.

“It’s a disease,” said Van Coller with a broad grin that bristled with the obvious pleasure from three days of top level competition. But don’t expect him to throw himself back into training, as he has a commitment to his family and Waterberg farm that preclude that happening.

The sprint season now turns to the Mazda SA Schools regatta at the same venue next weekend, where a record entry of scholars from around the country is expected.