The organising team had carried out an inspection of the possible venues in May and early September of 2009 and chose the Golf Course Rapid but it required considerable work to prepare it for the event. Initially the rapid consisted of two sections of rough water separated by a relatively featureless section of flowing water. Added to this the river banks were inundated with thorn tree vegetation and high phragmites reeds. Here is where the local club jumped into action clearing the banks getting machinery to cut access tracks to the river for the competitors and spectators and arranging for the installation of large concrete blocks as obstacles to create eddies and a small wave train in the featureless midsection of the course. The organising team headed by old campaigner Hugh Raw then erected a pole and cable system on the left bank to enable the gates to be strung at will by the course designers.

The Athletes started to congregate in Cradock from the weekend of 25^th26th September 2009 with paddlers from Nigeria, Uganda and Kenya among the first to arrive. The local South African paddlers headed up by the specialist Dihlabeng club also arrived over the weekend and training took place on the rapid in preparation for the event. On Tuesday afternoon the course was closed to competitors while the course designers headed by ICF coach Lionel Lafay from France set the course for the qualifying event on the Wednesday. This event went off smoothly and was somewhat historic in that it was probably the first fully beam timed event on the African continent with paddlers times being recorded by computer from when they crossed a start beam to when they finished by cutting a beam right across the river. This system was developed by local slalom paddler Guy Collyer with assistance from Anthony Wewege. Some drama was introduced by the late announcement that Olympic K1 Bronze medallist Benjamin Boukapeti from Togo was planning to arrive in time for the Semi Final and Final runs on the Thursday. The Nigerians immediately protested against the organisers accepting this entry stating that the event had been properly advertised as having a closing date for entries and that there was a qualification requirement. They submitted a formal protest in this regard and the organising committee after much deliberation upheld their protest.

Needless to say the day of the finals started with drama as Boukapeti had arrived late the evening before to hear that he was potentially disqualified for not attending the qualification event and not formally entering the event. A formal appeal against the decision of the organisers was submitted and after a great deal of consideration including international phone calls etc the appeal was rejected and Boukapeti was invited to compete in a demonstration capacity only.

The racing went off smoothly and the a African K1 Champion was crowned when Johnathan Akinyemi of Nigeria had two runs down the 18 gate course picking up one 2 second penalty in his second run  to record a total time of 251.81 seconds in second place overall and a surprise winner in the C1 paddler was South African Olympian Cyprian Ngidi who is traditionally a C2 competitior. Cyprian produced two faultless runs and beat fellow Olympian Master Cele by just under one second in each relegating Cele, the former C1 African Champion and Olympic C1 paddler into second C1 and third place overall with times of 262.36 and 263.10 seconds respectively. Timing accuracies that would not have been possible to separate had it not been for the electronic systems mentioned above. The Junior C1 title went to South African Jabulani Mofokeng. The ladies race was fought out between Ugandan river guide, Prossy Mirembe, and Pietermaritzburg schoolgirl Katy Rennie with the Ugandan consistently six to seven seconds ahead in each run to take the title with Rennie having to settle for second place but first girl. They were the only two ladies to progress from the qualifying event. The C2 event went to the Dihlabeng  pair of Cyprian Ngidi and Neto Mokutu ahead of Master Cele and Jabulani Mofokeng. The Junior C2 was won by the Kenyan crew of Alphaxzand Maina and Julius Mattanjamu. In the junior boys category it was an all South Africa all Dihlabeng affair with Success Mahlaba in gold, Mpho Keele in silver and  Ngkabe Sefojane in bronze.