International Canoe Federation

The finals got off to a good start with Canoe single women’s event.  Canada dominated the race with Laurence Vincent-Lepointe well ahead of her compatriot Nicole Haywood.  Sophie Cordelier (FRA) came in third.

The Men’s K1 200m proved to be as hot as the weather.  It was a fantastic race and went to the photofinish to decide the winner.  Ed McKeever (GBR) just nicked it with two hundredths of a second to spare over Victor Zavolskiy (RUS) to maintain his run of unbeaten races.  Michele Zerial (ITA) came in third for the bronze.

Russia would do well winning several medals on Sunday and Ivan Shtyl proved why he has a closet full of medals by winning the C1 men’s 200m race.  It was another exciting race with Richard Dalton (CAN) taking a very credible second place followed by Russian Evgeny Ignatov.

Teresa Portela (POR) was a popular winner in the K1 women’s 200m and told the ICF that she was ecstatic to win the short race as she had been in a lot of competitions over the weekend.   Finland’s Jenni Mikkonen told the ICF she was very happy to win a silver medal as it was a competitive final.  Jessica Walker (GBR) had a smile on her face as she collected the bronze resulting in three very happy ladies.

In probably the most exciting race of the weekend the Kayak Men’s double turned into a battle between the World Champions (Arnaud Hybois, Sebastien Jouve from France) and their closest rivals Liam Heath and Jonathon Schofield (GBR).  It was neck and neck the whole race until the end where the French duo just scrapped the victory.  Latvia’s Krists Straume and Aleksejs Rumjancevs finished third.  The British duo told the ICF ‘We like the Racice course as it is not affected too much by the wind.  We are now going home to put in a serious block of training for the European Championships’.

Two of the members of the successful K4 Belarus team Volha Khudzenka and Maryna Paltaran carried on their winning form by nailing the gold medal in the K2 women’s 500m final.   Austrian duo Yvonne Schuring and Viktoria Schwarz continued their weekends success by finishing second.  Great Britain also continued their podium presence with a very credible third from Leni Belcher and Angela Hannah. 

The Austrian girls (Schuring and Schwarz) were back on the podium winning the K2 women’s 200m final as well.  Making them probably the most successful athletes of the weekend. 

Russian dominance in the C2  200m was evident.  Evgeny Ignatov and Ivan Shtyl were too strong for the competition and showed why they are so successful in this event.  The Belarus team of Dzmitry Rabchanka and Aliaksandr Vauchetski took silver and Russia had a second duo on the podium with Victor Melantyev and Nikolay Lipkin.

After a false start in the K1 men’s 500m the cool head of experience told and Andres Gustafsson (SWE) lead from the start to the finish.  Rene Holten Poulsen (DEN) rounded off a successful racing weekend with the silver and Peter Gelle (SVK) made it a competitive third place.

The C1 Men 500m Final, although a non Olympic discipline still produces some good canoe sprint racing.  This race was no exception Ilya Shtokalov (RUS) won in a close battle with Thomas Hall (CAN) and Helder Silva (POR) finishing third. 

 The Belarus power house of Raman Piatrushenka and Vadzim Makhneu (BLR) took the gold medal in the K2 Men 500m beating off the French boat (Vincent LeCrubier, Philippe Colin).

 The Women's K1 5000m Final kicked off the final section of the World Cup in Racice.  The 5000m are a popular event and this was no exception.  Quickly a group of 5 girls broke from the field headed by Lani Belcher (GBR), Jenny Egon (IRE) Anna Adamova (CZE) and Kristina Zur (USA).  The Austrian, Anna Lehaci, could not keep up with the pace.  So it was a four person fight for the medals.   However, due to a miscalculation the bell for the final lap was sounded early confusing the athletes leading the race.  Eventually all the athletes completed the full distance with Lani Belches (GBR) sprinted to the Gold medal.  Due to the confusion two silver medals were given to Adamova and Egon with Bronze going to Zur.

In the C1 Men 5000m Final saw the race lead from the start to finish by the Canadian Mark Oldershaw giving him his second Gold medal of the weekend in emphatic style.  Local boy Lukas Koranda (CZE) gave the crowd something to cheer by finishing second.  Canadian Thomas Hall made up the medals in third place.

K1 Men 5000m brought the curtain down on a great World Cup.  With a very strong line up of 38 boats it was going to be an exciting race.   So much so that 2 athletes capsized immediately at the start as they collided.  Adam Van Koverden (CAN) led the field out on the first lap.   A group developed at the front of the pack for the main part of the race.  With one lap left four paddlers were in the mix Van Koverden, Max Benassi (ITA), Fernando Pimenta (POR) and Poulsen (DEN).

Pimenta punched the air when he crossed the finish line first, followed by Van Koverden who just could not overhaul Pimenta.  Third place was taken by Benassi in a thrilling sprint for the line.

Next weekend sees all the athlete reconvene in Duisburg Germany for the final installment of the ICF Canoe Sprint World Cup.

You can view all results at

http://www.sportis.cz/csv.php?id=1171&co=startovka

Video on demand from Racice will be available from the ICF’s website from Wedneday 25^th May.