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Durban, South Africa - The wily old sea dog and the strong young pup
renew their rivalry this weekend at the two-day Men's Health Dolphin Coast
Challenge when Oscar Chalupsky and Hank McGregor meet up again for their first
serious race against each other since their controversial ARB Surf Ski World
Cup clash in July.
 That photo again - Hank McGregor during the ARB Surfski World Cup July 2007 (Pic: Anthony Grote) South African Double Ski Championships
This weekend the 44-year-old
Chalupsky and his partner Bevan Manson take on the powerful McGregor and Team
Jeep athlete Barry Lewin in the race which will serve as the South African
Double Ski Championships. McGregor was entered to race with Sven Bruss, but
illness has meant Lewin and McGregor will now team up in a potent combination
that will be hard to beat.
The race is the first meeting
between Chalupsky and McGregor since the Durban leg of the World Cup in July,
which ended in protests and a controversial victory for Chalupsky.
 Oscar Chalupsky - 2nd in San Francisco
In the July event, McGregor held a
narrow seven-second lead with a couple of kilometres to go to the finish on
Durban's Addington Beach. But, crucially, the paddlers had to scuttle across
the Durban Harbour entrance and, as luck would have it, a container ship was
coming out of the harbour, forcing the officials to make a decision to stop the
paddlers for their own safety.
Both paddlers stopped, but were then
given permission to go as it was decided they would be able to cross in front
of the ship. Incredibly, Chalupsky, with his wealth of experience from 30 years
of sea paddling, used the harbour walls to shield himself from the headwind
while McGregor took a more direct route and lost the race by just over a minute.
Race times were adjusted to take into account the extra time McGregor had
waited at the harbour entrance, but it was not enough and after a protest
Chalupsky was awarded the World Cup victory.
No harbour crossings this time
This time there will be no harbour crossings and the two crews are favoured to
be slugging it out front for another national title to add to their already
over-filled trophy cabinets. But it may not be the two-boat race people are
predicting, with a couple of other crews in with a good chance of upsetting the
favourites.
Two sets of brothers, Dawid and Jasper Mocke from the Cape and Durban's Darryl
and Brett Bartho, pose a big threat, while Scott Rutherford and Wayne Wilson
are also sure to be in the mix. Another crew that needs to be watched closely
is that of Oscar's younger brother, Herman, who teams up with Steve Woods and
could spring a surprise.
The race is scheduled as a downwind event between Zinkwazi and Durban. The
start will be decided according to the wind direction.
 Barry Lewin won the doubles in San Francisco with Lewis Laughlin (Pic: Craig Tanner)
Dolphin Coast Leads up to three big races
This race is the perfect warm-up for the South Africans for an intense few
weeks of top-level international ski paddling with a sequence of huge events
coming up over the next seven weeks.
The announcement this week that the Dubai Shamaal event on November 30 is
offering a massive $20 000 (R135 000) first prize, means that Chalupsky,
McGregor and Dawid Mocke (along with just about every other top paddler in the
world) has one eye on a big payday in Dubai.
The Dubai event is also the third leg of the lucrative World Series. The series
kicked off with the US National Champs in San Francisco where Oscar Chalupsky
ended second behind Lewis Laughlin, with South Africans Barry Lewin, Darryl
Bartho and Manson fourth, fifth and sixth respectively.
Leg two of the series, a week before
Dubai on November 24, is the Dragon Run in Hong Kong. After the Shamaal,
Chalupsky, McGregor, Lewin and Mocke will be part of a big South African
contingent that will be heading down under for the Perth World Cup event on
December 8 and then back home for the next event of the Series, the Cape Point
Challenge in Cape Town.
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