The winners of the 2025 South African K2 titles at the Fish River Canoe Marathon over the weekend took vastly different routes to claim victory, with women’s winners Hilary Bruss and Bridgitte Hartley cruising home by almost 20 minutes, while Andy Birkett’s and Hamish Lovemore’s win was in doubt until just before the finish.
Bruss and Hartley were in a class of their own in the women’s race, and despite some unusual errors, the victory was never really in doubt. However, Lovemore and Birkett had to overcome a stern test of tactics, speed and fitness from Greg Louw and Matthew Fenn before claiming the men’s title.
The men’s race looked like being a tight a three-horse race, but when defending SA champion Clint Cook and his French partner Jeremy Candy swam in Keith’s Flyover Rapid, early on Day 1 on Friday, the race was reduced to two protagonists – although the leaders constantly kept a wary eye over their shoulders to check the Cook and Candy crew were not powering back into contention.
Up front the two leaders were locked in a tense battle for superiority on Day 2 on Saturday.
“We had a bit of a battle until the dying moments,” said Andy Birkett. “At Marlow’s Causeway (about 10km from the finish) they managed to get past us. At the put in from the portage we almost fell in but managed to right ourselves by grabbing their boat. Just after the causeway there is a chicken run and we managed to get through that with a two-boat gap and get away from them there.
“On Day 2 the racing and tactics was not one-sided at all. We were there to try and win, and they were there to try. They were trying hard to make us more tired and we were trying hard to make them tired.”
“It was different from Day 1, where it was a lot more conservative on both sides. Day 2 it was definitely on from the word “Go”. They would pick it up in every rapid to try and tire us out of a bit … and we would do that as well if we had a little gap on them – we would try and tire them out as well.
“I appreciate racing against Matt and Greg, because they’ll give it a good go … with them you know you are in for a hard race and they’re not going to let you have it easily – which is 100% what we want,” said Birkett before adding “But it is fair … they would never put us into a thornbush, so it’s nice, fair racing.”
It was Birkett’s seventh victory at the Fish River Marathon (including three K2 wins with Louw) and Lovemore’s first win in the two-day Eastern Cape event.
In contrast, the women’s race was pretty much decided early on Day 1, despite Bruss and Hartley surviving a scare when Hartley fell out in at the bottom of Double Trouble Weir. Bruss, remarkably, managed to roll the boat back up and retrieve her partner.
From there, Bruss and Hartley paddled away and started Day 2 with more than a 12-minute lead, which they had extended by another seven minutes by the time they reached Cradock – despite Bruss having to rescue her partner for a second time on Day 2 after Hartley repeated her solo swim at Cradock Weir.
“(The swim at Double Trouble) was the only real problem we had on the first day … we spun out at Soutpans but everything else was perfect,” said Hartley, before adding: “Then on Day 2 we shot Cradock and I fell out again … and Hilary stayed in the boat again, so we had to empty.”
“She manages to save herself by somehow tipping the boat back after I was already out. Sort of like a half roll … my eskimo rolling partner,” she added with a laugh.
Words and image supplied by the Federation
