Brazil, Great Britain, Russia and the United States all picked up gold medals in the extreme slalom on the final day of competition at the 2019 ICF junior and U23 canoe slalom world championships in Krakow, Poland.
24 hours after winning the U23 C1 title, Ana Satila picked up her second gold medal of the competition, winning the U23 extreme slalom final in wet and windy conditions. Czech Amalie Hilgertova, who won the U23 K1 title on Friday, finished second.
Satila is also the reigning world champion, having won on her home course in Rio last year.
“It’s amazing, I’m so happy. Today was such a long day, and I was really tired from yesterday,” she said.
“But it’s good I was racing for my country and for myself, and to have a bit of fun in the water doing the greatest sport, I’m happy to get another medal.
“It’s more in the mind than anything else, I think. We spent the whole day in the sun and the rain and everything happened, and we had to stay focussed.”
The competition had to be delayed due to a thunderstorm, but when racing resumed it was Russia’s Sergey Maimistov who provided the lightning on the water, winning the men’s U23 title.
He finished ahead of Austria’s Matthias Weger and Slovenia’s Tine Kancler.
“It’s really nice to be a world champion, I feel quite emotional,” Maimistov said.
“I don’t train too much for this event, but I train enough.”
15-year-old American Evy Leibfarth reached another milestone in her short paddling career, taking the gold in the junior extreme slalom. She beat Austria’s Antonia Oschmautz and Czech Katerina Bekova.
“I’m pretty excited, it was definitely a fight to the finish,” Leibfarth said.
“Extreme slalom is so much fun. Slalom I obviously love, but this is a way to be stress free and go out and have fun.
“I’m definitely feeling pretty tired, but I’m excited. I’m really happy with my kayak performance this week, my C1 final didn’t go as well as I hoped, but I just have more to work on for next year.”
Great Britain’s Etienne Chappell won extreme slalom gold at the opening senior ICF world cup in Lee Valley earlier this year, and followed up with junior gold in Krakow on Sunday.
He beat home Russia’s Egor Smirnov, with Germany’s Jakob Hein third.
“It’s nice after everything that has happened this week,” Chappell said.
“It was a good strong final, I love that. It’s just a great sport.
“Obviously my slalom didn’t go as good as it could have done, but that’s the sport.”
The Czech Republic won the champion team cup as the most successful nation of the world championships. The Czechs finished with six gold medals and 18 medals overall. France won seven golds, and 11 overall.
Thirteen countries won medals during the week.