No contest on river

HILLS - With the nation's fastest paddler in the field, the competition was for second Saturday at the Great Iowa River Canoe and Kayak Race.

As expected, Calvin Hassel, who has won nine straight national solo titles, and his partner, Tommy Cramer, reached the finish line before anyone else was even in sight.

Hassel, 50, of Grand Island, Neb., and Cramer, 35, of Rock Rapids, covered the 9.25 mile course from the Sturgis Ferry Park Access in Iowa City to the Hills Access in one hour 11 minutes and 17 seconds.

Hampered by a 25-mph headwind, they paddled hard, although not as hard as they might have if pushed by another vessel.

'We got away clean and had the lead after the first few hundred yards,” Hassel said

Asked when he knew they were paddling alone, he replied, 'I don't know. I never looked back.”

Hassel and Cramer had never before paddled together, but their crisp, synchronized strokes and the fluidity with which they switched sides - speed paddlers' principal means of steering - made it seem as if they had.

Cramer said Hassel lived up to his reputation for speed, power and smooth efficiency.

'I was trying to paddle as hard as I could to look good to Calvin,” he said.

Jim Braig of Dubuque and Jaya Elleson of Burlington, Wis., were the best of the rest, crossing the finish line a couple of minutes behind the leaders.

Elleson said the south wind blowing into the faces of competitors, kicking up little white caps in the most windswept stretches, cut their pace by at least a half-mile per hour.

Rick Hill of Iowa City, one of the race organizers, and his partner, Fritz Hansen of Burlington, Wis., finished third, followed closely by Ted Cramer of Rock Rapids and his partner, Gareth Stevens of Hubertus, Wis.

Stevens, a former editor of Canoe News magazine, said he and his partner tried to pick up the stroke pace to compensate for the wind.

'You always try to put everything you have into a race, but a headwind does take a little more out of you just because you are out there longer,” he said.

Hassel was also the first to the finish line in a second race with a much smaller field of the fastest competitors.

Event coordinator Dora Bopp, an employee of the Iowa Valley Resource, Conservation and Development Council, the event's lead sponsor, said Saturday's 91 participants constituted a record turnout for the race.

For the first time this year, she said, the event included a division for paddleboarders, and six of them participated.

The wind was especially hard on the paddleboarders, who stand upright on a vessel similar in conformation to a surfboard.

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