![\"2015bridgittemichelle450\"](\"http:\/\/fishmarathon.org.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/2015BridgitteMichelle450.jpg\")
<\/a>Making a welcome return to the South African river marathon scene after her 2016 Olympic Games endeavours, Hartley hopes this weekend\u2019s Eastern Cape race will help her reacquaint herself with her river kayak ahead of the Hansa Fish proper in two weekends\u2019 time.<\/p>\n\u201cThe Pre-Fish will be great for me as it will give me a chance to test my river skills again before this year\u2019s Fish,\u201d explains Knysna Racing\u2019s Hartley.<\/p>\n
The popular pre-Fish offers paddlers the opportunity to race the same course as the Hansa Fish, with the added bonus of the same 26 cumec water release that the big race guarantees every year.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy river skills certainly aren\u2019t the worst, but they\u2019re not the best either so I think this weekend will be really good for me.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve never done the Pre-Fish before so this weekend is far more about gaining as much experience as possible rather than the result,\u201d she adds.<\/p>\n
Having competed at the 2008, 2012 and 2016 Olympic Games, Hartley has spent much of her paddling career focused on her sprint pursuits.<\/p>\n
A recent change of mindset and desire to enjoy a few more facets of canoeing has seen the 33 year-old commit to a host of river marathon events, including the much-anticipated 2016 Hansa Fish.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m really excited to race this year\u2019s Fish!\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s always such a fun weekend and the women\u2019s level this year is going to be incredible!<\/p>\n
\u201cHopefully things can go well for me at Pre-Fish this weekend and I can get my confidence in the river up a bit a bit before Fish.<\/p>\n
After making a return to the river at last year\u2019s Hansa Fish where she finished second with K2 partner Michelle Burn behind Abby Solms (Euro Steel\/Gara Racing Paddles) and Anna Ko\u017e\u00ed\u0161kov\u00e1, Hartley is now eager to repeat her podium efforts again in 2016.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have done a few Fish before, so I have some experience, but they\u2019ve mainly been in K2s and once or twice in a K3 so in my head I still call myself a Fish novice.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith this year being a K1 championship year, it is a big step up from the K2 and K3 Fish I\u2019ve done before.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019d love to podium at this year\u2019s Fish though and if I could win then that would be amazing, but that\u2019s probably just my competitiveness from sprints coming out,\u201d the bubbly, likeable athlete laughs.<\/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":"
This weekend\u2019s Pre-Fish canoe race will give sprint sensation Bridgitte Hartley vital K1 river marathon experience ahead of her challenge for a podium place at …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2008,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2007","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\/2015BridgitteMichelleSLIDER-150x50.jpg",150,50,true],"full":["https:\/\/fishmarathon.org.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/2015BridgitteMichelleSLIDER.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\/2007","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=2007"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/fishmarathon.org.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2007\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2010,"href":"https:\/\/fishmarathon.org.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2007\/revisions\/2010"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fishmarathon.org.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2008"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fishmarathon.org.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2007"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fishmarathon.org.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2007"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fishmarathon.org.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2007"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}