The Zambezi Challenge

The Zambezi Challenge 2007 was complete when the reigning World Champions “Brazil Men’s Raft Team” held the Zambezi Challenge’s “Nyami Nyami Trophy” high above their heads. It was the closing function and prize giving event on the banks of the Zambezi River in the evening of Sunday the 22nd October.

That same day these fine athletes had clocked a credible time of fifty three minutes and ten seconds ( 0:53:10 ) on the “Down River” course between the “Boiling Pot” of the Victoria Falls and Rapid Number Eleven, a section that most tourists enjoying a commercial day on the river only complete in half a day or four hours.

The “Japan Men’s Team” were not far behind the Brazilians, as they finished the same stretch in fifty four minutes and forty seconds ( 0:54:40 ) and they were followed in third place by the Zimbabwe team who completed the race in fifty seven minutes and twenty three seconds ( 0:57:23 )

The previous day had seen the teams compete with three other professional white water teams in a “Raft Sprint” event held in three sections between rapids one and rapid five. The final sprint included rapid five which is known around the world by White Water enthusiasts as “The Stair Way to Heaven”, it is the steepest commercially rafted rapid any where in the world.

In the Kayak section of The Zambezi Challenge, Nico Chassing of France took the highest spot on the event podium for the second year in a row, his superiority in the down river event saw him complete the same section as the raft teams in fifty minutes and six seconds ( 0:50:06 ) ahead of Philani Moyo, an Italian based Zimbawean athlete who clocked fifty one minutes and one second ( 0:51:01 ) and Pedro Oliva of Brazil who completed the race hot on the tail of Moyo in fifty one minutes and twenty two seconds ( 0:51:22 )

These same Kayakers competed with a field of 19 professional paddlers from around the world ( including paddlers from Argentina, Japan, England and Zambia ) in a rodeo - freestyle event that was held in the idyllic standing wave of rapid number two.

More information and the full results on this event will become available in the next 7 days on the official event web site www.zambezichallenge.com or if immediate info is required, on request through the contact link on the web site (including editors who wish to include photographs from the event - please contact us and we will forward you selected pictures at a specified resolution.

Robin Brown www.creativeteaming.com