20 May 2003

Winning his record tenth Molokai World Surf Ski Championship in 11 tries, Oscar Chalupsky, 40, cemented his claim as the world's best ocean racer. The race, a 51km open ocean crossing of the Molokai Channel, featured the best field ever assembled in the 27 years of the event.

The channel is also known as the Kaiwi Channel, but is more often called the Molokai Channel. It begins at Laaun Point on the Hawaiian island of Molokai and ends off Diamond Head on Oahu. It is considered one of the roughest ocean channels in the world.

Chalupsky, who last raced the event in 2000, was vying with nine-time champion Dean Gardiner of Australia to see who'd win a record tenth title first.

With two-time Aussie Olympic medallist Clint Robinson here for the first time since 1994, five-time world champ Grant Kenny, ocean Ironman extraordinaire Dean Mercer and Chalupsky's younger brother Herman in attendance, the question was if Oscar would have the right stuff to crack the top three. Early on, it seemed as if he'd would not.

Setting a fast early pace, the Aussie trio of Gardiner, Robinson and Kenny gapped Team Chalupsky by as much as 400 meters. With temperatures of 40C and trade winds of 20 knots, Chalupsky elected to sit back in the sloppy three-to-four metre sea and conserve his energy, especially after he inadvertently lost his fluids an hour into the race.

At the halfway point, Oscar, still 300 metres behind Gardiner and Robinson, edged ahead of brother Herman and headed closer to the island of Oahu.

"I thought at that stage I'd be conserving my energy so that I could paddle hard during the second half of the race. Halfway across I put in a few hard surges," he said, "and when I wasn't pulling any closer, I had my doubts if I could come through."

Nevertheless, relying on his experience and superior surfing skills, Chalupsky caught Robinson, the 11-time Aussie National ski champ, nearly three hours into the race and surged even with Gardiner at Portlock Point, the last downwind section of the course before racers head north into a demoralizing 30-knot headwind to the finish.

The two nine-time champions battled for the next five minutes before a cramping Gardiner fell back for good. Said Gardiner: "For the first two-and-a-half hours I felt comfortable. Up until the end, I thought my race was against Clint [Robinson]. Just after the three-hour mark, my forearms started cramping. When Oscar came past I gave it all I had for five minutes and just didn't have enough left to respond."

Still, Gardiner nearly caught a lucky break when a fisherman's line snagged Chalupsky along the sheer cliff. A nimble move and few choice words later, Chalupsky carried on, finishing in three hours, 28 minutes and 33 seconds, one minute and nine seconds ahead of the 38-year-old Gardiner.

Clint Robinson finished third in 3:30:33 with Herman Chalupsky 30 seconds back. Grant Kenny, who led for much of the first half of the race, was fifth in 3:32:26.

Standing in front of the press just after the finish, the ever-loquacious Chalupsky was overcome with emotion and battled to explain how he felt about his historic 10th victory.

"It was difficult to prepare for this race. I knew that this was going to be a deep field and early on in the race I knew that I'd have to dig deep to pull it out. When it came time to explain how I felt to win my tenth, 20 years after my first race here in 1983, I got choked up. I was quite surprised."

In all, 60 ski paddlers and 46 one-man canoes started the race.

Chalupsky was sponsored by Ernie Els Wines. After the race, Chalupsky said: "I called Ernie, and he said he was very pleased that I broke the dominance of Australian sportsmen over South Africans".

Results

	Even at 40 years of age, Oscar Chalupsky showed he is still the greatest surf ski paddler in the history of the sport.

	Dreyer, Miedema take Dusi 2003 Stott, Bruss take Umkomaas 2003 SA paddlers take African Champs Three world-class canoe marathons

	The Molokai Challenge