The best European Canoe Slalom paddlers are in Slovakia preparing for the 2016 ECA European Canoe Slalom Championships which will begin on Thursday with an opening ceremony. The first competitions will be held on Friday when all competitors will start in the heats and try to qualify for the semifinals and finals which will follow on Saturday and Sunday. 230 competitors from 30 countries are ready to fight for the top positions.
This year’s ECA European Canoe Slalom Championships will have even bigger value for the contestants. Paddlers will not only fight for the European Champion titles but also for the spots at the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro as this European Championships will serve as the European Canoe Slalom Olympic Qualifier. Those nations who did not get an Olympic Quota at the 2015 ICF Canoe Slalom World Championships in London will now have the last chance to book a ticket to Brazil. The task is not easy, because there is only one place remaining in each of the four Olympic disciplines (Kayak men – K1M, Kayak women – K1W, Canoe men – C1M, Canoe double men – C2M).
On the other hand many of the European nations already won Olympic quotas last year, but the internal team trials for the Olympic teams that will represent respective countries in Rio de Janeiro have not yet been concluded. Azerbaijan, France, Germany, Great Britain and Spain already have the names of the athletes set to participate at the 2016 Olympic Games, but in many more countries (eg. Slovakia, Czech Republic, Italy, Slovenia, Austria …) all the names will be known after the European Championships in Liptovsky Mikulaš.
Michal Martikan (SVK), canoeing legend who won five Olympic medals, missed a chance to qualify once more for the Olympic Games (it was Matej Benuš who produced the best results to secure himself a place in the Olympic team), but is strongly motivated for the upcoming championships. Local hero who grew up at the course which will host this year’s European Championships decided to prolong his impressive career after a big disappointment at the World Championships in London when he even thought about the retirement.
“Thanks to our great fans and supporters every race we have at home in Liptov is memorable. The atmosphere can always be compared with any big race, so I believe it will be the same this year. I would like to repeat the experiences from nine years ago when the European Championships was in Slovakia and I managed to paddle the fastest and win,” Martikan remembered his success from 2007 when he became European Champion in front of a home crowd in Liptovsky Mikulaš.
LIVE RESULTS – https://www.canoeicf.com/results-pages/2016-eca-senior-european-championships
PROVISIONAL COMPETITION PROGRAMME
May 13, 2016
09:00 Group 1 - Heats C1M, K1M, C1W / 1st and 2nd run
14:30 Group 2 – Heats K1W, C2M / 1st and 2nd run
May 14, 2016
08:00 Group 1 - Semifinal C1M, K1M, C1W
13:35 Group 1 – Final C1M, K1M, C1W
15:16 Medal Ceremony – C1M, K1M, C1W
16:20 Teams – C1M, K1M, C1W
May 15, 2016
08:35 Group 2 - Semifinal K1W, C2M
