![\"2013D1VDWaltMaclaren500\"](\"http:\/\/fishmarathon.org.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/2013D1VDWaltMaclaren500.jpg\")
<\/a>2013 saw Maclaren and Van der Walt surge to a memorable fourth place Hansa Fish finish \u2013 despite still being an Under-23 combination \u2013 and two years on the pair are confident they can take step things up yet again as they look to do battle against their more senior rivals.<\/p>\n\u201cWe\u2019re just so amped for this year\u2019s Hansa Fish!\u201d said an eager Maclaren.<\/p>\n
\u201cEven though things didn\u2019t quite go our way in 2013 with us having a swim early on, etc., fourth was still great.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt would be silly not to say we want to better our result this year though; hopefully a podium is on the cards, or maybe even better!\u201d he added determinedly.<\/p>\n
Enthusiastic ahead of October\u2019s Cradock assignment, the pair are also well aware of the magnitude of the challenge that stands in front of them if they are to stand aloft the podium.<\/p>\n
The Kayak Racing\/Macsteel Maestros pair will have to rival defending K2 Marathon World Champs Hank McGregor (Jeep Team\/Kayak Centre) and Jasper Mock\u00e9 (Mock\u00e9 Paddling) and the ever-present Andy Birkett (Euro Steel) and Greg Louw (Knysna Racing), the two crews who pipped them to the post for World Champs qualification at the recent SA Marathon Champs.<\/p>\n
\u201cCrews like Hank and Jasper and Andy and Greg are unbelievable and it will be a really tough task taking them on at Fish.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re still quite young and while a guy like Grant van der Walt was able to box with the big boys from a young age, the rest of us know we\u2019ve had to bide our time.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel we\u2019ve now paid our school fees to a degree though and after this year\u2019s SA Marathon Champs in Pietermaritzburg, Brandon (van der Walt) and I have a bit of a bone to pick with them,\u201d Maclaren cautioned.<\/p>\n
Despite not going to World Champs as a pair, Friday still sees Van der Walt – a teacher at Bergvliet High School – jetting off to Gy\u0151r, Hungary as he looks to go one better than his 2013 runners-up finish in the Under-23 Men\u2019s K1 clash.<\/p>\n
The Kalk Bay resident\u2019s Worlds preparations have impacted on his and Maclaren\u2019s time in the boat together however the duo are not concerned by this ahead of the Cradock clash due to their strong bond both on and off the water.<\/p>\n
\u201cBrandon is absolutely flying at the moment!\u201d said Maclaren.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt last week\u2019s Peninsula time trial \u2013 which on any given day could have as many as eight world champions on the start line \u2013 Brandon went and smashed the K1 record as he\u2019s looked really good at our Orka Squad trainings!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI guess for me it\u2019s just about trying to avoid being baggage in the back of the boat,\u201d laughed the Newlands resident.<\/p>\n
While the title hopefuls\u2019 are well aware of the McGregor\/Mock\u00e9 and Birkett\/Louw threats, the pair believe their challenge may in fact be an even taller one than that.<\/p>\n
\u201cWho knows what the likes of Ben (Biggs) and Ali (Glass) are planning or what they might pull out of the hat, just as they did two years ago on day one.<\/p>\n
\u201cSbonelo Khwela and Banetse Nkhoesa looked really strong at SA Marathon Champs and you can never discount the chance of an international crew or two being at the Hansa Fish!\u201d added Maclaren.<\/p>\n
The Hansa Fish River Canoe marathon takes place on Friday 9 and Saturday 10 October 2015. More information can be found at www.fishmarathon.org.za<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Cape Town based duo Stuart Maclaren and Brandon van der Walt are fired-up to go toe-to-toe with the country\u2019s top K2 crews at this year\u2019s …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1275,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1274","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"blog_post_layout_featured_media_urls":{"thumbnail":["https:\/\/fishmarathon.org.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/2013D1VDWaltMaclarenSLIDER-150x50.jpg",150,50,true],"full":["https:\/\/fishmarathon.org.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/2013D1VDWaltMaclarenSLIDER.jpg",1050,350,false]},"categories_names":{"2":{"name":"News","link":"https:\/\/fishmarathon.org.za\/?cat=2"}},"tags_names":[],"comments_number":"0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fishmarathon.org.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1274","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fishmarathon.org.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fishmarathon.org.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fishmarathon.org.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fishmarathon.org.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1274"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/fishmarathon.org.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1274\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1277,"href":"https:\/\/fishmarathon.org.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1274\/revisions\/1277"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fishmarathon.org.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1275"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fishmarathon.org.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1274"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fishmarathon.org.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1274"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fishmarathon.org.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1274"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}