Solkan (27/08/2016) - After Friday’s team events in women’s canoe and men’s K1 and C1 it was time for the first individual finals of the 2016 ECA Junior and U23 Canoe Slalom European Championships. With defending European Junior and U23 Champions on the start it was expected to be an exciting race and it did not fail the expectations. But the defending champions who took part in the competition here in Solkan had to congratulate their opponents as we saw new European Champions in all the six individual finals today.
Marko Mirgorodsky (SVK) reigning junior C1M World Champion and defending European Champion produced a very good run in Solkan but it was silver medallist of this year’s Junior World Championships Matyas Lhota of the Czech Republic who crossed the finish line with the best time and beat Mirgorodsky for one second. Bronze medal also went to Czech Republic thanks to Vaclav Chaloupka.
Czech Republic and Slovakia were among the medallists in women’s Junior C1 event too. Simona Macekova (SVK) picked up gold medal. Kira Kubbe (GER) and Tereza Fišerova (CZE) joined her on the podium.
Italy too has a successful weekend in Slovenia. After medals from the Friday’s team event they celebrated Junior K1M European Champion title with Jakob Weger. Austrian paddler Felix Oschmautz finished second and Slovenian Jakob Jež picked up bronze medal at his home course and in front of his supporters.
Great Britain dominated the canoe events in the U23 categories. Kimberley Woods and Jasmine Royle finished one and two respectively in women’s canoe final ahead of Austrian Viktoria Wolfhardt, while Ryan Westley occupied the top position in men’s canoe. Lukaš Rohan (CZE) was second and defending U23 European Champion Kirill Setkin (RUS) third in the C1M U23 final.
Andrej Malek (SVK), bronze medallist of the 2015 Senior European Championships in Markkleeberg, stopped the clock at 90.60 to win the K1M U23 European Champion title. Clement Travert (FRA) was more than two seconds behind and Stefan Hengst (GER) picked up a bronze medal.
The remaining team races in women’s Junior and U23 kayak and men’s U23 C2 events were held shortly after today’s finals finished. Czech Republic (Tereza Fišerova, Antonie Galuškova, Katerina Duškova) repeated the success from this year’s World Championships and celebrated gold medal ahead of teams from Slovakia (Michaela Hassova, Sona Stanovska, Lucia Murzova) and Russia (Alsu Minazova, Anastasia Kozyreva, Daria Shaidurova) in women’s junior team race.
German paddlers Lisa Fritsche, Caroline Trompeter and Selina Jones too added the European Champion title to their gold medal from last month’s World Championships in Krakow. Czech paddlers Karolina Galuškova, Amalie Hilgertova and Barbora Valikova repeated their result from Poland as well winning their second silver of the season while Spain with Laia Sorribes, Irene Egues and Julia Cuchi picked up a bronze medal.
In men’s C2 we only saw a race in the U23 category where Poland (Brzezinski/Brzezinski, Wiercioch/Majerczak, Brzezinski/Sztuba) finished the race ahead of Russian team (Popov/Voinalovich, Shkliaruk/Mikhailov, Kotov/Komkov) and Germany (Hecht/Weber, Beste/Loos, Tuchscherer/Lehrach).
On Sunday the Championships will close with semi-finals and finals of women’s kayak and men’s C2 events in both age categories.
Results and live streams: http://siwihome.azurewebsites.net/canoe123/eca?SessionKey=siwidata.1045
