She may have been laid low by chronic fatigue at the end of 2024 but super paddler Christie Mackenzie has certainly regained her mojo in style to start 2025 on a high.
Just two months into the year and the 25-year-old has won her third Drak Challenge event, while at the weekend she became only the third woman to win four consecutive K1 Dusi Canoe Marathon titles.
In three days of gruelling racing Mackenzie never looked like being beaten as she relegated Nikki Birkett and Olympic legend Bridgette Hartley to silver and bronze respectively.
Paddling clearly pours through Mackenzie’s veins though and she admits to drawing heaps of inspiration from younger brother Hamish, a national level paddler himself.
“I’ve always been a lover of sport and come from a sporty family. My mom, Jolene Ann, has won a silver medal at Comrades Marathon and also did well at the Two Oceans Marathon.
“My dad, Ken, was in the army and always very fit, and my folks did quite a few canoe races back in the day, like the Umkomaas, Dusi and others.”
Her life was somewhat disrupted when, at about 12 years old, her parents went their separate ways and young Christie went to live with her aunt and uncle in the rural KwaZulu-Natal area of Highflats.
It was there the roots of Mackenzie’s sporting abilities were planted. “I got into a lot of athletics events, ran the 1,500m for KZN at school level and made the Sisonke district hockey team.
“My uncle used to wake me up very early and I’d run laps around a potato field and again after school.”
Her paddling passion was further ignited when she went to Epworth High in Pietermaritzburg, a renowned paddling school.
As luck would have it, her dad had at this stage moved to Underberg on the banks of the Umzimkulu River and to this day the region and river remain close to her heart.
“I’ve got an absolute love for the Drak and it’s been an honour to win it three times now... it’s always going to be special because I learnt to paddle there with my dad.”
At Epworth she fell under the tutelage of Les Willows — “an amazing human” — and through his guidance undertook a paddle trip right around the Indian Ocean island of Mauritius.
She was getting better and better “at this paddling” thing and at the end of 2015 her paddling journey took another turn for the better.
“I came down to Durban to train with Lee McGregor for the month of December and when I got back to school I told my parents I really wanted to give international paddling a full go and asked them to support my decision to finish my schooling in Durban while I trained with Lee.”
They agreed and she hit pay dirt immediately — within six months of proper training she’d made her first Proteas team and was off to Germany to race K1 and K2 at the ICF World Marathon Championships, where she came 14th in the K1 and seventh in the K2.
A year later and she’d improved to third in the K1 and fourth in the K2.
“Since then, I’ve been good enough to always make the top five or top 10 at worlds. I’ve got four bronze world marathon champs medals and one silver in the K2 with [fellow Durbanite] Saskia Hockly.”
Despite these results her most impressive win to date must surely be the legendary Sella Descent in Spain in 2024. “I was invited to race it, it’s one of the biggest river races in the world and I ended up winning the K1 category.”
Normally a stickler for discipline, Mackenzie says she went into this year’s Dusi a little underprepared, “which I think was actually a good thing, it took the pressure off me. I usually put a lot of pressure on myself but this year was different — so much fun, myself, my seconds, my backup were more relaxed and we just had fun.”
In 2022 she had moved back to Durban after spells in Cape Town and Joburg, and this saw her spending way more time paddling in the ocean. It’s something that has upped her game considerably.
“It’s truly innovated my river paddling and I’ve increased my skill level so much in big and challenging waves... river paddling almost seems ‘easy’ now.
“We had a full river at both Drak and Dusi this year and I can see the ocean paddling has made the world of difference.”
With a victorious Drak and Dusi behind her, what does the rest of 2025 look like for Mackenzie? Well it certainly seems her canoe seat is going to take a back seat for a while.
“I haven’t committed to anything yet since doing Dusi... I really want to focus on getting into my master’s in psychology this year and also use the discipline that I’ve mastered in paddling to innovate other areas of my life.”
And despite having travelled extensively she’d like to see that through different eyes.
“When you’re competing, you’re often stuck in hotel rooms and can’t do a lot of walking around or be in the sun too much because you’re conscious of prepping for the race, so yes, I’d like to do some travelling without worrying and do touristy things — I think I’ve earned that.”
In SA, paddling doesn’t pay the bills and apart from sponsors Euro Steel (they have supported her since 2017), EADP and Braca, Mackenzie has a full-time job at MSP Staffing.
“I often have to take unpaid leave to flit around the world racing, so I may need some time to refocus and experience other pleasures of life.”
And thankfully that includes some Christie-time.
“I’ve met an awesome group of friends here in uMdloti and really want to spend more time with them and get to know them better while trying some new activities like surfing and skating, maybe.
“A large part of my life has been dedicated to elite sport. It’s been amazing, opened so many doors to me and I’ve met amazing people, but it takes up a lot of your time.
“So it would be nice to expand my goals, hobbies and dreams for now... I’m certainly not giving up paddling, but won’t be competing at ICF marathon champs this year as I just can’t afford to put all my time, energy, leave and money into racing internationally at this stage.”
She’s put in the hard yards for a quarter of a century already, no-one can begrudge her putting her paddles aside, for however brief a period that may be.
Proud mom Jo, who has won a few high profile trail running events herself, shares two anecdotes of her daughter’s early sporting adventure.
“She’s an incredible person, always has been… she makes me want to do better every day, she truly inspires me.
“I remember we were living in Maclear in the Eastern Cape and I was training for Comrades Marathon and I had no-one to do my long runs with, a couple of days a week. Christie was six and I used to put her on a bicycle and she’d ride 20-30km [at least] with me and I’d push her up every hill.
“One particular day, I was hating my run and complained about a tough hill and she turned around to me and said: ‘But mom, if we didn’t have all these uphills, we’d have no downhills to fly down’."
Jo says her daughter’s grit and outlook on her life are just next level compared to most.
“I pushed Christie around the garden on her bike for so long before that story – probably for a longer distance than all my Comrades – she simply had no sense of balance. And from all accounts she literally fell out of her boat at almost every rapid in her first Dusi… and look at her now, she’s won it four times!”
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