Hungarian junior paddlers Viktoria Nagy, Dorina Fekete and Levente Vekassy won their second medals of the 2017 ECA Canoe Marathon European Championships in Ponte de Lima during the second day of competition in Portugal.

Nagy won gold in the K2W junior event together with Zsofia Korsos, Fekete picked up silver in the same event paring with Emese Tanka and Vekassy celebrated his second European Champion title in K2M junior event, this time with Andras Redl.

Patryk Gluza (POL) won in men’s C1 U23 event, Heine and Mode (GER) were the best in C2M junior race and Adam Petro (HUN) won in men’s K1 U23.

The Hungarians finished in position one and two in women’s K2 junior event, despite being penalised for an error they have made during the race and had to wait at one of the portages for their time penalty to pass.

It was Viktoria Nagy together with Zsofia Korsos who stood on the highest podium position for their performance. They were paddling a race of their own and at the end crossed the finish line more than two minutes faster than their closest rivals and team colleagues, Dorina Fekete and Emese Tanka. Dorina Fekete picked up gold medal in yesterday’s K1W Junior event and Nagy finished second.

“It was not easy, actually it was very hard. We just love to paddle,” were the words of Viktoria Nagy after the win.

Emma Russel and Freya Peters finished the K2W junior competition in third place to win the third medal of the championships for Great Britain.

Levente Vekassy and Andras Redl also won a gold medal for Hungary. Vekassy, who became European Champion in junior K1 event, and Redl fought hard until the last metres of the race to secure themselves a top position. Danish duo Thorbjorn Rask – Nikolai Thomsen was only 3.09 second behind and another Hungarian K2 Balazs Bodnar – Adam Horvath finished the race in third position.

It was Poland who dominated the men’s C1 U23 event, picking up gold and silver medal. Partyk Gluza and Mateusz Borgiel were paddling together most of the race, helping each other, but at the end Gluza found more strength to cross the finish line with the best time of the race.

Sergio Maciel (POR), local favourite and last year’s junior European Champion, picked up the bronze medal after he paddled with the Polish duo the entire race, but at the end did not find enough power to overtake them.

“The race was really good for me today. From start to the end I worked with my teammate and we did it. It went like we wanted; we wanted to control the race from the start until the end. We knew we had a chance for medals today,” said Patryk Gluza.

In men’s C2 junior race Arved Heine and Jonas Mode won the first medal of this European Championships for Germany. The young duo crossed the finish line 1.43 seconds faster than David Hodovan and Kristof Kollar from Hungary, while Patryk Piotrowicu – Mateusz Cybula finished third to complete a whole medal collection of the day for Poland.

In the last event of the second competition day – men’s K1 U23 – Adam Petro defended the U23 European Champion title he won last year in Pontevedra, Spain. The Hungarian paddler who was also a U23 World Champion in 2016, crossed the finish line four seconds faster than Miguel Llorens from Spain and Zyggy Chmiel picked up another bronze medal for Great Britain.

“It was very hard. After last year I wanted to be here," Petro said.

"The last portage did not go as I planned, but at least it was interesting in the end. I wanted to control the race all the way.

"I wanted to get out of the boat first at every portage. In the last portage I was clumsy, I did not pay enough attention."

On Saturday senior events are scheduled for the whole competition day. At 9:00 the day will commence with C1W senior event, at 11:50 K1W will follow, at 12:00 C1M and at 14:45 K1M.

RESULTS: http://canoemarathonportugal.com/index.php?page=timetable-and-results

Videos of the 2017 ECA Canoe Marathon European Championships are available on Canoe Europe Youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/CanoeEurope

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