Denmark’s Rene Poulsen and Lisa Carrington from New Zealand produced standout performances at the ICF Canoe Sprint & Paracanoe World Championships in Milan today.
Poulsen won his first men’s worlds K1 1000m final, beating the defending champion Josef Dostal of the Czech Republic after a hard push for the line which saw the Dane finish almost half a second up.
“That was incredibly hard but I just focussed on my own race,” said Poulsen who adds the title to his K1 500 gold from a year ago in Moscow.
“It wasn’t the perfect race but I’m pleased. I don’t really know how to react on this K1 1000 because it’s a little bit unreal still.”
Victory today partly made up for Poulsen disqualification from the K2 1000 earlier in the week. “That was a small hiccup but I think we can qualify next year so it’s going to do well next year,” he added.
Lisa Carrington became the first New Zealand athlete to win a women’s world K1 500m title after beating Anna Karasz of Hungary by a good margin of 1.51 seconds.
“It was a good race in a tough event and I’m really pleased to have a performance in a way that I’m happy with, which represents how my year has panned out,” said Carrington, who won the K1 200m title in the London 2012 Olympic Games and plans to add the 500m event to her repertoire in next summer’s Rio Games.
“It’s all about keeping the challenge and trying to get better every year every day. As I get older I get fitter, stronger and work on more things, so you get more years under your belt.”
Olympic Champion, Germany’s Sebastian Brendel, held off a strong challenge from Martin Fuksa of the Czech Republic in the men’s C1 1000 to retain his title, his shoot for the line giving him a slender margin on just 0.017 seconds.
“It was one of the toughest races this year,” said Brendel, who revealed his race plan had been to leave it to the final few metres before launching his attack
“I was nervous because the wind was not on my side but I tried to keep close to Fuksa and I’m happy to finish in first position,” he said.
“As athletes we keep improving and I think next year will be harder than next year and I also feel that I can be a little bit faster next year.”
Germany added a second title today in the in the men’s K2 1000m A Final, with Max Rendschmidt and Marcus Gross (whose used the occasion to propose to his girlfriend) producing a forceful display of paddling to regain the title they last won in 2013.
“It was a nice race and we were quite powerful,” said 21 year old Rendschmidt who now becomes the youngest male with multiple world titles in this event. “The last year wasn’t so good so we are so happy that we are now winners.”
The men’s K2 200m final provided the drama of the first day of mainstream finals. The Hungarian pair, Sandor Totka and Peter Molnar, crossed the line in first place before race officials declared a false start. But they kept composed for the next 45 minutes before going on to win the re-run.
“It was really hard because the first race was really good for us but we have prepared for everything,” said Totka.
“It sounds funny but we have even prepared for what happened today where we had to do a second race.
“It was really hard to win it but we train a lot, Peter is a very good partner and I am very happy now.”
Hungary maintained its grip on the women’s K2 500, a title they have won eight times in the last eleven world championships, after Gabriella Szabo and Danuta Kozak won the gold today. For Szabo it was her second successive world title after her success in the K2 500 at Moscow last summer.
Belarussian Artsem Kozyr provided a surprise in the men’s C1 200m having taken the title ahead from a strong field. Four times gold medallist Valentin Demyanenko of Azerbaijan finished sixth whilst defending champion, Ukrainian Iurri Cheban was ninth.
Results:
Women’s C2 500m Final
1. Daryna KASTSIUCHENKA / Kamila BOBR (BLR) 2:00.675
2. Maria KAZAKOVA / Olesia ROMASENKO (RUS) 2:01.798
3. Kincso TAKACS / Zsanett LAKATOS (HUN) 2:02.788