First ICF ranking race of the year 2016 on Fulda river in Germany

WWC

13 March 2016

It was the first international showdown of wildwater canoeing athletes in 2016 which was held as an ICF ranking race on Fulda river in the middle of Germany. The first downriver race where all German wildwater competitors in all age categories have started to see their level after the winter break, looked like the biggest wildwater event in Germany. The schedule of sprint and classic race was full for two days, the water level was good but the temperature outside could be more comfortable.

Competitors of Switzerland, Belgium and Netherlands used the German races as selection races for their national teams as usual as well as one K1 athlete from Bosnia.

Belgians young athlete Bram Sikkens was good for a big surprise as he won the K1 men sprint race before the both Germans Björn Beerschwenger and Finn Hartstein. Hans Meermanns the Belgian coach was very confident with the results of Bram as well as the results of his big youth and junior team: " During the races here in Fulda my young athletes can learn a lot from Suisse and German competitors, I have a big and young team and I am sure that you can see them the next years during Europeans and Worlds. But in this moment I am not agree that we will have no U23 competition in 2016. We will try to take part with a big team in Junior Europeans this year".

Even the Suisse team was happy with their double win of Melanie Mathys and Sabine Eichenberger in K1 women category which were followed by Sabine Füßer (GER).

Eichenberger could also win C1 women races with a comfortable margin and Suisse coach Kristin Amstutz is looking forward to the results of the World Championships in Banja Luka: " Sadly we will have only a small team this year, but some of them will also compete the world cup races in Slovenia and France".

In C1 and C2 men category were only German competitors and as usual Norman Weber won both C1 at first, C2 with his partner Rene Brücker followed by their German team colleague Tobias Trzoska and Mike Schmitz.

The next ICF ranking race will be held on river Rur in Monschau, a traditional classic course in the western part of Germany.

ICF Ranking Races 2016:

March 12	Fulda, Fulda	Sprint	GER	Int. R.
March 20	Monschau, Rur	Classic	GER	Int. R.
April 16/17	Osilnica, Kupa river	Classic	SLO	Int R.
April 23/24	Plavy-Jesenny,Kamenice river	Classic	CZE	Int. R.
April 30	Bled, Sava Dolinka river	Classic	SLO	Int R.
May 07	Augsburg - Eiskanal	Sprint	GER	Int. R.
June 01-05	Banja Luka, Vrbas river	Classic/Sprint	BIH	Worlds
June 9-11	Celje	Classic/Sprint	SLO	WC 1-2
June 18/19	Pau	Classic/Sprint	FRA	WC 3-4
August 22/23	Lipno - Vltava	Sprint	CZE	Int. R.