The strongest field since the Tokyo Paralympic Games will come together in Duisburg this week for the ICF Paracanoe World Championships, with quotas for next year’s Paris Games on the line.
The top six athletes in each of the 10 Paralympic events will all earn their country a quota for next year’s Games, but will be restricted to one ticket per country.
More than 180 athletes from 35 countries have entered the Duisburg World Championships. The Czech Republic will make its paracanoe world championship debut, while Brazil, who picked up a gold and two silver medals in Tokyo, will have the biggest team.
Eight of the nine gold medalists from the Tokyo 2020 Paralympics have entered this week, hoping to earn themselves the chance to defend their title in Paris. Among them will be Australia’s Curtis McGrath, who made history in Tokyo by becoming the first paracanoe athlete to win double gold at a single Paralympics.
McGrath missed last year’s world championships in Copenhagen, but is back to contest the KL2 and VL3 in Duisburg.
Great Britain’s Charlotte Henshaw, who is hoping to become the first woman to win two gold at a single games next year, is focusing on just the KL2 this week, while teammate Emma Wiggs, the most successful female Paralympic athlete ever with two gold, will contest both the KL2 and the VL2.
Tokyo gold and silver medalists Edina Mueller and Maryna Mazhula will resume their battle for the women’s KL1. Germany’s Mueller won gold in Tokyo, but Mazhula triumphed at the world titles.
In the women’s KL3 Great Britain’s Laura Sugar, the Tokyo champion, and France’s Nelia Barbosa, who took silver, will once again go head-to-head.
Brazil’s powerful paracanoe squad returns to action, with all three of their Tokyo medalists set to race for Paris quotas. Paralympic champion Fernando Rufino de Paulo will take on teammate Igor Tofalino, who is the reigning world champion, in the VL2.
Hungary’s Peter Pal Kiss will also make a return to racing. The Tokyo and world championship gold medalist will face a tough challenge from Brazil’s Luis Cardosa de Silva, a silver medalist behind Kiss at both events, and Frenchman Remy Boulle, who finished third in both races.
Racing in the ICF Paracanoe World Championships begins on Wednesday.
