Florida paddlers’ preparations for Dusi on track
Two young paddlers completed the Klip River race to prepare for the world's toughest canoe marathon.
Florida Lake Canoe Club (FLCC) has been improving the lives of underprivileged youth from nearby townships and informal settlements for more than 20 years through their Community Youth Development Programme.
According to the FLCC, numerous participants in the programme have achieved success in the sport. Youngsters enjoy canoeing and achieve good results.
Moshe Nghomane, a young paddler from Soweto has been active at the club and on the river as an assistant coach by helping with the Learning to Canoe and the Introduction to Rivers programmes. He partnered with one of the newest FLCC recruits, Vhutshili Elliot Mamburu – who is also known as Chilly boy because of his calm personality – to finish the two-day Klip River race that was hosted by Johannesburg Canoe Club. This event is also a Dusi Canoe Marathon training event.
Moshe and Vhutshili finished the two-day, 66km Klip River race on 25 and 26 January in a time of five hours and 19 minutes, and finished as the second U/23 team.
The Dusi is seen as the world’s toughest canoe endurance marathon, where paddlers not only race in their canoes on the river. At certain points they are required to pick up the canoe and run the given distance with it to the next allocated point where they enter the water again. The Dusi kicks off in Pietermaritzburg and ends in Durban on the last weekend of February.
