MARK ETHERIDGE: Canoe marathon teen queens share more than just being on the water

SA’s newly crowned ICF world junior K2 canoe marathon champions Holly Smith and Georgia Singe have similar interests in that one sees a potential career in interior design and the other is obsessed with “tiny-home living”.        

For now though, the two Cape Town teens (both are 17) can celebrate life outside the confines of a K2 canoe and find the perfect place to show off the newly-won medals at their homes in Hout Bay and Kommetjie respectively.

The dynamic duo’s Danish delight saw them winning a nail-biting world title in the city of Vejen, with just three seconds separating them from silver medallists Spain.

Camps Bay High’s Smith says winning gold hadn’t really crossed their minds leading up to the race. “My realistic expectations were top five as I knew we were strong together, but we’d never raced on the world stage in a K2 together before.

“We just wanted to do well, didn’t put too much pressure on ourselves, we were just excited to finally race together.”

Elaborating on this, she says: “We train in the same squad in our singles, but we never really got the chance to train doubles together — maybe once or twice on the build-up towards worlds.”

The two train together at Peninsula Canoe Club in Sandvlei, near Muizenberg, where so many national and world champions have their roots and are both coached by veteran champion paddler Pete Cole, husband of yet another ace paddler, multiple Dusi, Berg and Fish River Marathon winner Alexa (née Lombard).

Singe, who remarkably only started surf-skiing during the Covid-19 pandemic, says her and Smith’s sporting careers have synced through most of their lives. “We’ve known each other forever through lifesaving. She’s at Llandudno and I’m at Fish Hoek so there’s always been a friendly rivalry.

“We’re part of the Orka squad and get a weekly programme, with the mornings normally being swimming or running and then the evening paddling at Sandvlei.”

Singe had an illness scare 10 days before the champs when she came down with tonsillitis, which she describes as “a bit of a bump”.

She’s quite forthright about life together in the boat.

“Sure, it’s not always rainbows and butterflies, but as soon as we’re off the water we’re the best of mates. We make a good team ... she’s got all the tactics waxed and I’m the engine in the back.”

Smith is quick to credit the more senior members of the squad with their global success. “I have to thank Nicky Notten, Kenny Rice, Candice Murray, Kira Bester, Daniel Jacobs, to name but a few. 

“I’m so blessed to have these phenomenal paddlers who’ve helped me along my journey — from encouraging me at training, to giving me the best advice possible, as well as taking me on big downwinds from such a young age, and my coach’s wife [Alexa] for helping me with technique when I was a still a guppie.”

“Old coach Cole” is a proud old soul and explained the reason for his charges not spending too much time in the K2 before worlds. “They were both doing singles at worlds before the K2 event so I tried to put in as much effort into that as possible.

“The singles keeps you strong. If you spend too much time in the double, the back person runs the risk of losing a lot of power, so hopefully more time in the singles would see them being fine in the doubles.

“Also, the fact that they’d both done the K1 earlier in the champs meant they’d done the running and portaging already and were familiar with that before they got to K2.”

Wise words indeed, as the gold medal proves.

“Holly has paddled a bit longer than Georgia so she’s slightly more astute at this stage while Georgia is a true powerhouse — her timing is really good, so it works out very well with Holly driving and Georgia powering.”

Looking further down the line, Cole says the fact that they’re still both only 17 means they have another year in the junior division. “So let’s see what they can do next year ... the obvious priority would be to defend the title, which is always a hard thing to do.”

Both gold medallists have international duty to look forward to in the next few months. Singe is off to Texas today for the International Surf Rescue Challenge (lifesaving). “It’s my second time I’ll be representing SA. I also qualified for the ICF Ocean Racing World Championships in Perth in November but can’t really afford that now and it wouldn’t be wise to miss another end-of-year exam.”

One plus side of her visit to Texas will be on the musical side. “I really love the old-style country music scene”, and she’s sure to find plenty of that in the Lone Star State.

For her part, Smith will be heading to Perth, meaning that while the K2 gold medallists will be going solo on different continents, they will both be hoping to bring back more glory to SA.

Smith has many strings to her bow, having played the guitar and piano as well as singing in primary school, but she also has a daredevil streak to her.

“A lot of people don’t know but I used to love to skate a half-pipe. We even have a half-pipe at home, but I’m not really allowed to skate before big competitions in case I injure myself,” she says with a laugh.

One thing’s for sure with these two — there are no half measures. It’s always a flat-out pull to the podium!