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 Image from usn.co.za
The bubbly Durbanite, who rose to global prominence when she won the Worlds Fittest Woman title, has been on a meteoric rise to stardom since set started canoeing seriously a year ago.
She made a major impact on the national sprint racing scene, where she feels her long term Olympic dreams can be realized, and also took her first national canoeing title, when she partnered the powerful Capetonian Alexa Lombard to victory in the SA Marathon Champs K2 race last month.
The win has also earned her a call up to the national team for the world championships in France in September, and with it her Protea colours for canoeing.
”Things are going well right now,” she said from her home in Durban, where she is recovering from a dose of flu. “Between my personal coach Russell White, who is handling my diet and nutrition, as well as the psychological side of the training, and my canoeing coach Attila Adrovicz, things are looking good.”
Good might be an understatement. Worlock has been unbeatable in the ski series to date, having won all four races that she has been able to enter, as well as the national trials for the Surf Ski World Cup team.
Worlock and the classy Michelle Eder made the SA women’s team, but she is acutely aware of the looming “race within a race” as a number of top South African women’s who were not able to race the national trial, have entered the World Cup.
“It is going to tough, especially as a number of the girls from the Cape like Nikki Mocke, Donia Kamstra, and of course Michelle Eray, are out to prove a point. The flip side is that it is great to see the standard of women’s paddling so high,” she added.
Worlock comes from a very successful sporting family, and was guided by her father, himself an international swimmer, and a strong paddler. She started lifesavers as an 11 year old nipper, and got into ski paddling as a fourteen year old.
”There was a lot of blood, sweat and tears in those early days, and my dad was very patient with me,” She recalls. “I got into ski paddling because I was doing the Iron Man, but ski paddling wasn’t my main focus.”
At the world interclub lifesaving championships in February this year she saw her paddling training paying off as she raced in the final, against the best 16 ski racers in the lifesaving world.
She was right in the mix, in the top three before a mistake saw her miss a turning buoy, and she finished eighth.
“I would love to win the World Cup title on Sunday,” she said. “In ski racing this is an effective world championship. I have no idea which other women will be coming from other countries, but no matter what, it would be great to be able to say I am a World Cup champion.”
The Surf Ski World Cup gets under way on Sunday morning 2 July, between Durban’s Bay of Plenty and Westbrook beach, depending on the prevailing downwind conditions.
The event will be preceded by a spectator friendly Grand Prix relay through the surf at Bay of Plenty on Saturday.
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