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CDU & T2
Being social... T2 with his daughter
at a social paddle.
Having fun... The Dream Team. It's alway
fun at work.
Being with mates, Adrian and Marcus..
T2 paddles the City Lights with Marcus, one of his best
mates.
Being with workmates: Sam, me and T2
Paddling with friends.. Fast or slow
T2 loves paddling with different friends.
Putting in extreme effort..
Helping others.. T2 receiving gifts
from paddlers at the Monday night fitness sessions after
the long season.
Helping others... Rescuing paddlers
in the white water.
Working hard.. Checking kayaks before
being sold
Working and advising.. Making sure our
customers get the boat that they are happy with
After Alaine has told one of her famous
jokes! What can we say. Our lips are sealed.
T2 striding off into the sunset ....
lets hope he returns soon.
He will
be missed
*************************************
The Best Win Ever
Oscar Chalupsky's 12th, and most unlikely,
Molokai World Championships victory
By Joe Glickman
Being part of a team... There is no
doubt T2 is a team player and is respected by other
great paddlers. Here Oscar and Walter Chalupsky call
in to say hello to our CDU team.
Oscar has recently won
his 12th Molokai World Championships
For someone who is basically my father’s age to
win is mind blowing. It’s one of the best sporting
performances I have ever been part of.” —ninth
place finisher, Michael Booth, age 21.
Two hours and more than half-way into the world’s
most famous surf ski race, 11-time Molokai Champion
Oscar Chalupsky sat seventh. While he maintained visual
contact with five of the six paddlers up front, Aussie
Clint Robinson, the defending champ, was out of sight
and all but certain to claim his third straight title.
Given his age, the fact that when he’d started
training two months earlier he weighed 268 pounds, that
his foot was cramping, and, of course, that the paddlers
ahead were younger, faster and fitter, the odds that
the 49-year-old from Durban would win his 12th title
seemed somewhere between No Way and Jose.
Oscar is famous for his downwind prowess—the bigger
and more raucous the conditions, the better he rolls—and
a level of self-confidence that at times can seem delusional.
Behind the bluster, however, are countless hours of
training time devoted to technique, and, perhaps most
important, a commitment to this race over all others.
Molokai is often called the unofficial World Championship
of the sport; to Oscar, the man with the most Molokai
titles, it is unequivocally the best downwind paddle
on the planet.
With 15 miles remaining, the balding redhead slurped
a GU, took a pull of Cytomax, shortened his paddle from
215 cm to 213 and had a proper shit fit. “Stop
using your arms,” he screamed over the wind. “You
have the f#*king strongest body…Drive with your
legs…”Nobody has as much power as you. NOBODY!”
Before the GU had time to settle, he surfed by Aussies
Michael Booth and Bruce Taylor.
Two down, four to go.
Soon after, Marty Kenny, a perennial top-five finisher,
spied Oscar approaching. Kenny knew that Oscar aimed to
stay in contact with the leaders for the first two and
a half hours and then have a proper go. Still, he was
impressed by Chalupsky’s sudden acceleration. As
he put it, “The Fat Man, who wasn’t fat any
more, was flying.”
Kenny followed Chalupsky for 20 minutes until cramps
gripped him hard and he fell back. When Oscar passed
countryman Matt Bouman, a pre-race favorite who’d
punctured profoundly, he was third. Oscar shouted to
his escort boat. “Where’s Robinson?”
“Out of sight,” came the discouraging reply.
Just ahead, however, was the next step on the podium:
nine-time Molo champ Dean Gardiner.
Deano is as chilled about his goals as Chalupsky is
intense. But Gardiner, who had started uncharacteristically
hard, is Chalupsky’s equal downwind and when properly
motivated is just as willing to hurt himself. He knew
something that Chalupsky didn’t: Robinson was out
of sight because he had dropped back. As the striated
cliffs grew ever larger, Gardiner’s elusive 10th
title seemed tantalizingly near.
Until Oscar appeared.
Chalupsky made “a definitive pass,” but Gardiner
refused to let go. For the next three miles, the longtime
friends and rivals diced downwind. Oscar reached the
edge of the wall first, five boat lengths up on Gardiner.
The two-mile stretch to the bridge that marks the finish
at Hawaii Kai is into the wind. After 32 miles of sprinting
for runs, the physical toll is enormous. Oscar was physically
at the edge of the ledge but his technique never deserted
him. He caught a wave over the reef, clipping his rudder—
“Jezz, that was close,” he thought.
Violating his own rule, he glanced back again to check
on Gardiner. Dean had mercifully fallen away, but just
200 yards back was Clint Robinson, the former Olympic
Gold medalist, closing fast in a shiny black boat of
his own design. Oscar leaned into the wind and hammered
toward the line. He crossed it 20 seconds ahead of Robinson,
who’d been cramping for much of the last two hours.
In the footage of the finish Oscar looks uncharacteristically
subdued. In fact he was hyperventilating, physically
unable to muster a smile, let alone raise his arms.
When he finally caught his breath, his post-race wrap
up said it all: “I can’t believe it. It’s
my best win ever.”
******************************
Please note we have moved
to Unit 3 / 516 Guildford Road
Bayswater
on Moojebing Street,
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