South African sprint canoeing ace, Chrisjan Coetzee, produced a strong performance for Team South Africa when he finished eighth in the men’s K1 500m A-Final at the ICF Canoe Sprint World Championships in Copenhagen recently.
Coetzee was part of a small South African contingent that competed against the world’s best but for the paddler to make A-Final is testament to his improvement, becoming the first South African male to qualify for an A-Final at the Sprint World Championships since Shaun Rubenstein in 2007. “These results were the best I have ever achieved at World Champs with my B-Final in the 200m and the A-Final for the 500m. It’s the first time I’ve been able to get into two finals at a World Championship,” said Coetzee.
According to Coetzee, seeing the trajectory of his career grow from his medal achieved at an ICF Sprint World Cup event to an A-Final at the World Championships was incredibly motivating. “This result is so important for me because since May it’s been quite a struggle for me to get training done but I am really happy with the results and they have been a huge encouragement for me.” Team South Africa also had a few crew on board at the competition with the women’s K4 of Bridgitte Hartley, Esti Olivier, Zara Wood and Michelle Burn taking part for the first time. Olivier and Hartley raced in their K2 and Olivier and Coetzee also teamed up for the mixed K2 racing. For President of Canoeing South Africa, Kim Pople, getting crew boats racing at world championships is what they want more of. “We’ve said before that crew boats is the way we want to go in the future so we can get as many paddlers racing at the highest level,” Pople said. “Chrisjan has been competing at this level for a few years and we can see that he’s feeling comfortable racing against the best in the world. “To have more paddlers racing in this high-pressure environment is the goal as we look to get as many boats as possible qualified for the next Olympic Games,” added Pople.
