Hodson vs Hartley for Olympic Team

South Africa’s sprint canoeing challenge at the Beijing Olympic Games in August will be shaped this weekend in the charged atmosphere of the canoeing mecca of Szeged in Hungary, where the season’s first World Cup regatta is serving as the final selection event.

All eyes will be on the riveting showdown between the two women vying for the solitary berth in the blue ribbon 500m K1 event, South Africa’s Jen Hodson and Bridgette Hartley.

Hartley threw a cat amongst the pigeons by edging out Hodson in a ferocious first trial at Nagle Dam outside Pietermaritzburg earlier this year, after two seasons in which Hodson has enjoyed a meteoric rise to international stardom, and was widely regarded as a certainty to race the women’s 500m K1 race in green and gold in Beijing.

In terms of the national selection criteria set by Canoeing South Africa, the 500m K1 berth will be decided by the performance of the duo in the season-opening World Cup at Szeged.

Both girls started the regatta strongly on Thursday, and cruised into the semi-finals, with Hartley posting the faster time, a 1 minute 50 seconds effort that placed her a very close second to the Hungarian multiple Olympic medallist Katalin Kovacs.

In her opening heat Hodson also finished second, crossing the line in 1 minute 51 seconds. The South Africans posted the fifth- and sixth-fastest times in the heats, which will earn them preferential positions or the semi-finals.

However the pair are unlikely to race side by side, as the national selectors would prefer to enable them to make a clear-cut decision about which paddler will take the sole berth available at the Beijing showpiece, as they seem destined to compete in separate semi-finals.

This will set the stage for a arguably the most important canoeing event in South African women’s canoeing history, should the women’s 500m K1 final feature both the South Africans. "Either way, it is so exciting to see the incredible heights being reached by our women paddlers," said national selector Gustav Radloff.

The women’s K4 of Michelle Eray, Jen Hodson, Nikki Mocke and Carol Joyce also raced into the semi finals after a fourth place in their opening heat, while Eray and Mocke are also racing in the K2 competition.

All five women have qualified for the Beijing Games, and with the deadline looming for names to formally entered for each event, this weekend’s racing will decide the combinations for the K1, K2 and K4 events.

While the fascinating duel between Hodson and Hartley will hog the attention of South African paddling fans this weekend, the regatta in the canoeing heartland of Hungary will be a first acid test of the squads readiness for Beijing, as they and their coach Nandor Almasi, plot the few remaining weeks to the showdown at Shun Yi in China that starts on August 11.