No Stopping Dream Team at Nonstop

Press Release / 16.02.2010

The Nonstop Dusi is no ordinary event. This no-holds-barred canoe marathon condenses three days of extreme Dusi mayhem into one, and one should therefore expect the athletes lining up at the start to be extraordinary men and women. As indeed they were, and none more so than the six Change A Life athletes from the Martin Dreyer Academy.

Flying the flag not only for title sponsors COMPUTERSHARE, but also for hundreds of friends, family members and supporters here in the Valley of A Thousand Hills, the young development paddlers knew this would be their biggest test to date. Ahead of them lay 120km of churning rapids and back-breaking portaging, set within a cauldron where temperatures on the actual day soared well above 40 degrees Celsius.

Canoeing enthusiasts from around the world had been taking a keen interest in the Change A Life story, especially following on from their incredible performance earlier this year at the Hansa Powerade Dusi Canoe Marathon itself. Here Thomas Ngidi and Eric Zondi wrestled their way to an unprecedented third position, the first podium place for black canoeists ever in an internationally acclaimed race.

Martin Dreyer, himself a seven-time Dusi and Non Stop Dusi winner, probably understood better than anyone else what his young heroes were about to face. “This is no ordinary river, and most certainly not an ordinary race”, he said as he helped prepare their boats in the pre-dawn light upon the banks of the Dusi River in Pietermaritzburg. “Eight hours of insane racing awaits these young warriors. They must battle this treacherous river and, for nearly a quarter of the race, carry their boats along energy-sapping tracks as they do battle with both the terrain and the searing heat”, he continued. “Should they win that war, they will still have to contend with fierce competition from a select field, including defending champions Michael Mbanjwa and Piers Cruikshanks".