![\"2015dusid3mbanjwa450\"](\"http:\/\/fishmarathon.org.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/2015DusiD3Mbanjwa450.jpg\")
<\/a>The widely recognised Mbanjwa, who became the first black paddler to win the Dusi Canoe Marathon when he and Martin Dreyer raced to K2 glory in 2008, is a regular amongst the gold medals at the Eastern Cape major, which doubles as the South African K1 River Marathon Championships in 2016, and the 33 year-old Valley of a Thousand Hills star hopes to clinch another gold in early October.<\/p>\n\u201cThe Berg River Canoe Marathon in the Western Cape in July was quite disappointing for me as I pinched a nerve in my lower back on day one,\u201d explains the Build it\/Williams Hunt athlete.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wasn\u2019t able to paddle much for a while after that but I have been trying to get things going again recently.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can still feel my injury if I sit in the boat for two hours or more without getting out, but my fitness is improving and I\u2019m starting to feel much better again.<\/p>\n
\u201cI will definitely still try race for a top ten at Fish; one mistake and that could be my chance gone though, so it will be a tough two days of racing but I\u2019m really looking forward to the contest.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite his injury impeding his ability to stay seated for extended periods of time and the first stage\u2019s record being just short of three hours, Mbanjwa doesn\u2019t believe this will hamper his Fish assault.<\/p>\n
\u201cDay one is the longer of the two days at Fish but there is the portage around the dam wall shortly after the start of the day and then another one a little bit later on.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese will give me the chance to stand up and stretch my legs so I won\u2019t be sitting for three hours straight and so I don\u2019t think my injury will be a problem at Fish.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mbanjwa, together with his fellow Lembethe Canoe Club members Nhlanhla Cele, Siyanda Gwamanda and Mpilo Zondi, clinched the Delta Motor Corporation Trophy for winning the Club section at the 2015 Hansa Fish.<\/p>\n
While many of Mbanjwa\u2019s Lembethe team mates won\u2019t be making the journey down to Cradock this time around, the paddling stalwart reflects fondly on their 2015 achievement.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is a pity we won\u2019t be able to try defend the Club trophy we won last year at this year\u2019s Fish,\u201d says Mbanjwa.<\/p>\n
\u201cWinning that trophy was huge for Lembethe Canoe Club and must be one of our club\u2019s biggest achievements, especially because it was at the Fish, which is a paddling race not a running race.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are often known as Dusi specialists but the Fish has the biggest rapids in the country other than the Umkomaas, so we are very proud of this achievement.\u201d<\/p>\n
As Mbanjwa pins his ears back to prepare himself over the final two weeks before this year\u2019s Hansa Fish, the Build it\/Williams Hunt ace is also bracing himself for another titanic tussle at the front of the field.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m going full out for these next two weeks; there won\u2019t be any tapering for me!\u201d chuckles Mbanjwa.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe field at this year\u2019s Fish will make it another very difficult race; all the top guys will be there and so the pace will be very high, just as it always is.\u201d<\/p>\n
The 2016 Hansa Fish River Canoe Marathon takes place from Grassridge Dam to Cradock Sports Complex on Friday 7 and Saturday 8 October.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
South African paddling icon Thulani Mbanjwa hopes to overcome an untimely injury to push for yet another top 10 finish at this year\u2019s Hansa Fish …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1990,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1989","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\/2016\/09\/2015DusiD3MbanjwaSLIDER-150x50.jpg",150,50,true],"full":["https:\/\/fishmarathon.org.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/2015DusiD3MbanjwaSLIDER.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\/1989","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=1989"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/fishmarathon.org.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1989\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1992,"href":"https:\/\/fishmarathon.org.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1989\/revisions\/1992"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fishmarathon.org.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1990"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fishmarathon.org.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1989"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fishmarathon.org.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1989"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fishmarathon.org.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1989"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}