C1 Men
Olympic Silver medallist Matej Benus (SVK) very well executed his plan, he had a solid run which made the course looks very smooth and easy, he made a clean run with almost no mistakes and finished first with Czech crowd cheering for him. The European U23 champion Ryan Westley (GBR) started the first one in the finals from the tenth place in the semi-finals and kept the leading position through most of the competition, he grabbed the silver medal with a clean run and the bronze medal went to Benjamin Savsek (SLO), he started his race smoothly, paddled very well on the top part of the course however two touches kept him at the 3 place despite his fast run.“Finally after many years I take the gold medal from Prague home, my plan was to go fast and clean and I did it” Said Matej Benus (SVK)
C1 Women
Czech paddler Katerina Hoskova looked like the possible winner when she kept the first place even with her two seconds penalty but Jessica Fox , Australian star of canoe slalom, had a 7 second clean ahead of Katerina and stood at the first place .Third place went to Mallory Franklin from Great Britain who performed clear run but 0,22s slower than Hoskova.
Jessica commented “I had a really good run and i am happy to be on the podium again in C1, I had to make space everywhere to make the boat speed on, I heard while I was in start warming up that Katarina Hoskova did a great run and the crowd was crazy so I knew it would take something special to beat that and I ‘m happy with my race”.
K1 Men
K1M race looked like the Czech National Championships, first four places were dominated by Czech kayakers. Ondrej Tunka (CZE) kept his first position through the race, Vavrinec Hradilek (CZE) had a very close run and kept the pace with Tonka`s split times but finished 0,16 seconds behind, Jiri Prskavec (CZE), current World Champion and Rio 2016 bronze medallist , flew through the gates with the fastest split times and pushed even harder after his two seconds penalty at gate 9. He made it to the first place by only of 0,01s faster than his teammate Tunka.
“It is amazing. I am especially happy that the four of us made it to the top positions. I am quite lucky with hundreds of seconds this year. We performed almost a similar runs with Ondrej Tunka but I am placed first. The crowd who pushed us so much must be satisfied“, said Prskavec after the Czech triumph.
C1 Men
- Matej Benus (SVK) 98.91 no penalties
- Ryan Westley (GBR) 99.16 no penalties
- Benjamin Savsek (SLO) 100.74 4 seconds of penalty
C1 Women
- Jessica Fox (AUS) 113.59 no penalties
- Katerina Hoskova (CZE) 120.52 2 seconds of penalty
- Mallory Franklin (GBR) 120.74 no penalties
K1 Men
- Jiri Prskavec (CZE) 91.60 2 seconds penalty
- Ondrej Tunka (CZE) 91.61 no penalties
- Vavrinec Hardilek (CZE) 91.77 no penalties
