Len Jenkins is looking to repeat his rampant 2001 win when he sets off at the start of The Unlimited Dusi 2013. Anthony Grote/Gameplan Media
Pietermaritzburg – Twelve years after he won it as an impetuous teenager, Len Jenkins is older, wiser and hungry to add a second title to his CV at The Unlimited Dusi Canoe Marathon that starts at Camps Drift on February 14.
Now 31 and a working engineer, Jenkins’ career has taken many twists and turns, and as he hits his marathon racing prime, he is back to top form, and combined with accumulated paddling wisdom, it sets him up for a serious shot at the title and the record R57 500 prize purse for the overall winner.
This season the Team Shackleton paddler blitzed to his 10th victory in The Unlimited Ozzie Gladwin, a few weeks after winning the prestigious Hansa Fish K1 title for a sixth time in succession, and narrowly lost to Grant van der Walt in the recent flooded N3TC Drak Challenge.
Jenkins openly admits that the race this year will be one of the most competitive ever, but also says that it is in conditions like these that he thrives.
“I am the kind of paddler that needs a lot of good racers around me,” he says. “That is when I am at my best. It all comes down to motivation, and when there are plenty of top guys around me, that’s when I am at my best.”
After a quiet January when he battled with illness Jenkins has bounced back to prime form winning the Crusaders Night race on Blue Lagoon, and has now set his sights on The Unlimited Dusi in a fortnight’s time.
