New Zealand’s Lisa Carrington continued an unbeaten run in the women’s K1 200 that stretches back to 2011, while Canada’s Katie Vincent picked up three gold on a dramatic final day of competition at the ICF Canoe Sprint world championships in Duisburg.
Carrington won her first ever K1 200 world cup gold medal in Duisburg in 2011, a win that kick-started a career which now includes five Olympic gold medals and 15 world titles – including nine 200 metre crowns and a record that has her unbeaten at an international level since that 2011 world cup.
“I love the event,” Carrington said.
“Compared to the 500, strategically it is very different, so it’s fun to just get out there and go as fast as I can. It’s just about having fun out there and enjoying it.”
Last year in front of her home fans in Halifax Katie Vincent won three gold medals on the final day of competition, and on Sunday she repeated it by winning the women’s C1 500, alongside Connor Fitzpatrick in the mixed C2 500, and in the women’s C1 5000.
She revealed later that her preparation had been disrupted earlier 14 week ago when she broke two bones in her arm in a cycling accident.
“It’s the perfect way to finish off the championships, and even though they are non-Olympic events they are still really competitive,” Vincent said.
“I was off the water for more than four weeks, pretty much all of June, so we knew we had eight weeks to prepare on the water, so it’s just nice to perform and show that it didn’t hold us back and we were able to still be at our best.”
China won the women’s C4 500, while Germany’s Lena Roehlings and Jacob Schopf won the mixed K2 500.
In other 5000 metre results, Denmark’s Mads Pedersen overcame a race delay because of a thunderstorm to defeat great rival Fernando Pimenta from Portugal to take his first world title.
Pedersen and Pimenta will clash again next weekend in the ICF Canoe Marathon world championships in Denmark. And Pedersen said he hadn’t given up hope of earning his country a K1 1000 Olympic quota next year.
“It was a really strong field, so to win here means a lot,” Pedersen said.
“I didn’t compete in the 1000 metres here, but I’ve been training in the shorter distances. The dream is not over.”
Hungary’s Balazs Adolf outlasted local hero Sebastian Brendel to take the men’s C1 5000 title.
“It was a tough race between myself and Sebastian, but I knew I would have an advantage in the portages. I knew he would have the crowd advantage, but at the last portage I went very hard and kept going for the line.”
In the women’s K1 Spain’s Estefania Fernandez overcame a strong field and a surprise thunderstorm to claim her first world title.
Pics by Bence Vekassy
