The first races of the 2017 ICF U23 and Junior Wildwater Championships in Austria have been completed, and so far results have been spread evenly among the leading paddling communities.

The Czechs dominated the first women’s K1 junior classic race, Klara Hricova taking the honours with three of her teammates filling the next three positions.

In the women’s K1 U23 it was Switzerland’s Melanie Mathys who filled the top position, seven seconds ahead of Italy’s Mathilde Rosa.

The Czechs found themselves back on top in the men’s C1 junior classic, Vojtech Skorepa finishing ahead of Ireland’s Darragh Clarke Walls, while in the U23 France’s Theo Viens pipped out Czech Vladimir Slanina by just over one second.

The K1 men’s junior classic saw another Frenchman greet the judge first, Augustin Reboul finishing ahead of Switzerland’s Linus Bolzern, but in the U23’s it was Germany’s Nico Paufler, Finn Hartstein and Marcel Paufler who took the top three positions.

Italy’s Cecilia Panato beat Czech Gabriela Satkova, fourth in the K1, in the C1 junior women’s race, and then teamed up with sister Alice to win the women’s U23 C2 classic.

Martina Satkova, Gabriela’s older sister, got the job done in the women’s U23 C1 classic, ahead of Germany’s Sophie Lea Barth.

In the C2 men’s juniors, France’s Augustin Reboul and Gael De Brye finished 37 seconds ahead of countrymen Raphael Grehan and Thibaut Collignon in the classic race.

The U23 C2 race was won by Czech’s Filip Jelinek and Vaclav Kristek, with Germany’s Ole Schwarz and Janosh Suelzer just 1.78 seconds behind in second.

Good local rain has made for some thrilling racing on the Mur River. 240 athletes from 19 countries are competing on the course which hosted the ICF Wildwater World Cup in 1991 and 2015, and the European Juniors Championship last year.