Hank McGregor

Hank McGregor is beyond doubt the greatest paddler the world has ever seen....nobody will ever surpass his long and varied list of prestigious achievements.

There are some brilliant paddlers that may outboast Hank in a specific discipline, but nobody has won as many titles across the spectrum :

Surfski : 3 x Molokai winner / 2 x Dragon Run / 3 x Mauritius Ocean Classic / Surfski World Champion 2014 / millions of smaller titles
River : 11 x Berg River Marathon K1 champ / 2 x Dusi champ (K1 & K2) / 5 x Fish River Marathon K1 champ / 3 x Drak Challenge K1 champ / 4 x Avon River Marthon champ (K1 & K2) / millions of smaller local SA titles
Marathon : 6 x ICF K1 champion / 2 x ICF K2 champion

Paddling is a bit of a fringe sport, so Hank will never get the full credit he deserves - fame nor remuneration. After his double-gold in Brandenberg this last weekend, an unprecedented 8th ICF gold medal, hardly even a mention in the local press....

But we are inner circle, and recognise the immensity of his title role : so let's use this forum to honour the LEGEND.

Indeed. An absolute legend.

Agreed. It makes it even more impressive when you see some of the best marathon kayakers who can stay with him in marathon get in an ocean ski and get left behind.

Even the best ocean paddlers (jasper excluded) wont venture near a marathon kayak as they know just how different the sport is, so to excel in both flat water and ocean distance racing is a rare quality.

AR_convert wrote: Agreed. It makes it even more impressive when you see some of the best marathon kayakers who can stay with him in marathon get in an ocean ski and get left behind.

Even the best ocean paddlers (jasper excluded) wont venture near a marathon kayak as they know just how different the sport is, so to excel in both flat water and ocean distance racing is a rare quality.

There's a great video-biography on youtube:

Can you imagine crossing the Atlantic from SA to USA with your dad in a sailboat and paddling next to it for hundreds to thousands of miles as a teenager? This early life experience paired with unbelievable will power was bound to create such an outstanding athlete.

AR_convert wrote: Agreed. It makes it even more impressive when you see some of the best marathon kayakers who can stay with him in marathon get in an ocean ski and get left behind.

Even the best ocean paddlers (jasper excluded) wont venture near a marathon kayak as they know just how different the sport is, so to excel in both flat water and ocean distance racing is a rare quality.

I agree Hank is amazing. But he and Dawid are far from the only ski paddlers with world class K1 credentials. Probably none are as dominant in both disciplines as hank though.

zachhandler wrote:
I agree Hank is amazing. But he and Dawid are far from the only ski paddlers with world class K1 credentials. Probably none are as dominant in both disciplines as hank though.

Hmmmm, I've no doubt that IF some of the worlds top ocean ski racers did race in other marathon related disciplines they would do, but please tell me who amongst the top say 10-15 Ocean paddlers in the world do we see representing their country at Marathon Worlds or featuring in World Class White Water Marathon racing?

I have no doubt that Hank is in a class of his own for marathon events, but there are other paddling disciplines that are worth considering as well.

Clint Robinson's resume looks pretty impressive...

5 time Olympian
3 x Olympic Kayak medals at three different games (Gold, Silver, Bronze)
4 x ICF World Championship medals including 2 x Gold
15 x Australian SLSA Surf Ski titles
11 x 1000m Australian K1 titles
3 x Molokai Surf Ski World Champion

Though if we're really going to go with "the greatest paddler the world has ever seen" hyperbole, Birgit Fischer should probably be considered.

@redback,
yep, if one looks up the medal listings in wikipedia for Birgit Fischer and Katalin Kovács ... these are impressive,
imagine they'd designe kayaks, how the stickers in the boats could read ...

No hyperbole intended.....by "paddler", I mean in the broad sense, further qualified by the 2nd sentence, where I stress "spectrum".

Fischer & Kovacs are clearly well-decorated Olympic medalists, and obviously surpass Hank's results in this field of paddling. But not sure how they fare beyond this narrow focus area.

On topic of Olympics, anyone know why a marathon paddling event in not included in the schedule - seems well suited to the Games ? The required facility is common to the sprint & rowing disciplines ?

Anyway, the main point of the original post, was to encourage some acknowledgement of Hank's superhuman achievements....not going too well !!!

at craig,

"Anyway, the main point of the original post, was to encourage some acknowledgement of Hank's superhuman achievements....not going too well !!!"

You are right, but I guess that is because many think of him as a legend anyway and take that as a given. Manys have seen "The making of a legend" a dozen of times with full admiration for son and dad. At least me.

Hi Craig,

As far as Marathon kayak events in the Olympics are concerned, I believe time allocation is the issue.

The regatta facility has to be shared with the "Backward Boys" and organisers need to build lay-days into the schedule to allow for weather issues.

Even the K1 5,000m event is not part of the Olympics because they deem it to take too long.

Pity.

craigDBN wrote: On topic of Olympics, anyone know why a marathon paddling event in not included in the schedule - seems well suited to the Games ? The required facility is common to the sprint & rowing disciplines ?

Farbeit for me to speak on behalf of the discipline, but from what I understand the sport has been gradually changing over the past 10-15 years to move towards gaining acceptance at Olympic level. This has been done by moving to using sprint courses, reducing lap sizes and increasing the number of portages (for the spectacle). The effort put into broadcasting the World Champs live and the modes of broadcasting ( wire, drone and boom cameras etc) has shown (from my perspective) that it is worthy of inclusion from a spectator point of view.