Canoeing

Canoeing Awards

MIC:

• Ms D Johnstone

Captain:

• Connor Erwee

Full Colours:

• Connor Erwee • Matthew Maccelari

The 2021 Team

Connor Erwee, Matthew Maccelari, Nicholas Erwee, Luke Salmon, Tome dos Santos, Theo Dreyer, Jordan Klopper, Mathew Cole and Jordan Byres.

Thank You

Special thanks to the school for their support and to our school coach Mr Zulu and MIC Ms Johnstone for another great year.

Season

Canoeing is an all year sport and despite the various Covid-19 challenges our team of paddlers have excelled in a number of local, national and international events.

Disciplines

Our team have actively trained in canoe polo, sprint, marathon and river events with many of the young men earning provincial representation, provincial, federation and national colours.

Highlights

River races

Some heroic paddling from some of our paddlers in local river races, as well as the notorious Dusi and the Fish river marathon races.

Sprints

The provincial sprint regatta was held at Germiston with some strong times in what turned out to be a windy morning. The SA School Sprints was held at Shongweni Dam in KwaZulu-Natal. A well-organised event and superb conditions for the paddlers. The high school team came away with a team award, a number of individual medals, personal bests, six qualifications to compete overseas. We had one paddler in the South Africa team that competed in the Junior U23 Worlds in Portugal and five paddlers in the South Africa team who competed at the Olympic Hopes in the Czech Republic.

Our paddlers did themselves and their school proud with some fantastic racing. Whilst paddling is often seen as an individual sport the camaraderie amongst the team and competitive goodwill between the different countries was amazing. The opportunity to compete overseas was a wonderful opportunity full of valuable life lessons and special memories.

Marathons

The provincial marathon event was also held at Germiston and the SA Marathon champs was held in Muizenberg in the Western Cape. Our paddlers navigated through some challenging conditions and did their school and province proud in what proved to be two intense days of racing in K1 and K2.

Canoe polo

There were social tournaments where paddlers could practice skills and get into teams. The SA Champs was held at Homestead Lake in Benoni.

Mr P Zulu

Coach

Dear Sirs and Ma’am,

I hope you are all well.

I just wanted to say thank-you for your help and support of the school canoeing team from the training to helping with admin for visa applications.

There were five boys from St David’s Marist Inanda in the South Africa team that went to the Olympic Hopes. They were Luke Salmon, Nicholas Erwee, Jordan Klopper, Tomé dos Santos and Theo Dreyer.

The entire team fully embraced the opportunity and were very blessed and fortunate to be able to race at a world class venue against the best athletes from around the world in their respective age groups. Whilst there were no medals, every SA paddler made a semi-final and they were all in the mix.

They came away with a lot more than just invaluable race experience (first time using starting blocks we don’t have these in SA) … they made lots of new friends, learnt to use shuttles (from the hostels to the race course), given the independence to make sure they were timeously at the race course, walk in the town to the breakfast venue, navigate language barriers and experience a very different culture. The team was also treated to a whistle-stop walking tour across Prague before flying back to South Africa.

Before the regatta, we were able to rent K4 boats for the team and the paddlers were phenomenal. None of the paddlers have raced together in K4 but they embraced the opportunity practised and swopped seat positions until they were comfortable. Quite remarkably each of the three crews, put together on tour, made semi finals. The smiles on their faces as they crossed the finished line I will never forget. Other international crews asked why the teams were so happy as they did not win, if only they knew. The team work and communication skills the paddlers demonstrated to make the K4s happen in a very short space of time was impressive. I think the friendships they made will last a lifetime.

The SA team were great ambassadors for their country. I am very proud of how they conducted themselves on and off the water.

Special mention also of Mathew Maccelari who was on the SA team that competed in Portugal in the Junior and U23 World Champs. He faced even tougher competition in weather conditions that were incredibly hot and humid. He raced very well and gave it everything he had. He also saved the day navigating the SA team through Charles de Gaulle airport in record time for their connecting flight back home.

Canoeing team

Back row: Luke Salmon, Nicholas Erwee, Theo Dreyer, Tomé dos Santos Front row: Jordan Byres, Connor Erwee, Mr P Zulu, Matthew Maccelari, Matthew Cole