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South Africa’s most prestigious long-distance canoe race has turned into something like S**t Creek.
Daily Maverick reported that some competitors of the four-day Berg River Marathon in the Western Cape became severely ill after the race, suffering from fever and vomiting due to what was suspected to be the poor water quality of the river.
It seems water sportsmen can’t catch a break, between the Paris Olympics to the Berg River, and even the Dusi Canoe Marathon in South Africa, water woes are felt the world over.
While a notable amount of Olympians reported getting ill after performing in the Seine River, competitors in the Dusi Canoe Marathon, the 120km race between Pietermaritzburg and Durban, were also warned about “potentially poor water quality”.
Additionally, participants from the 240-kilometre Berg River race – from Paarl to Velddrif that took place in July – revealed the difficulties and disappointments they faced.
Tiaan van Zijl (35) was unable to finish the race as he fell ill on the second night of the race, vomiting and suffering from a severe fever.
“Despite all the preparation, getting to know the river and getting everything ready, the last thing I considered was getting ill. We spent a lot of time on the river and things happen. We do capsize. We do fall in the river. You slip on the bank… you splash your face with that river water, so you ingest it inevitably,” he said.
He said on the second night, it got so bad that he was lying with a bucket next to him, and considering an ambulance. The nearest hospital was about half an hour’s drive away, but thankfully he said “At the end of the day, my system kind of just worked all the stuff out” and the symptoms lasted about 24 hours.
“We [paddlers] call it the ‘river guts’.”
Robbie Herreveld, a six-time winner who first won in 1991 at the age of 19, also became sickly after ingesting some of the Berg River, even though he said his illness was not as bad as two years ago when he withdrew after suffering severe stomach cramps, diarrhoea and nausea.
“This year I… finished, but the night before the fourth day, that’s when the problem began. That was diarrhoea and stomach cramps but I managed to pull through. I nearly pulled out… again, but I managed to hang in and get to the finish,” he said.
Herreveld said he suspected poor water quality in the Berg River was the cause and not food poisoning as several other competitors experienced the same symptoms while they hadn’t all eaten the same food.
He urged the authorities to figure out what the cause is and take action to fix it.
“It’s something that needs to be sorted out, not only for the good of the sport. We’re a small minority in this whole ecological disaster… birdlife, fish life, everything in the river surely has to be affected by the poison that’s coming down the river,” said Herreveld.
[source:dailymaverick]
