Hungary picked up another two gold medals while there were also wins for France and Spain on the final day of competition at the ICF canoe marathon world championships in Romania on Sunday.
France’s Quentin Urban and Jeremy Candy defended their K2 world title, Spain’s Manuel Campos and Diego Romero retained their C2 world crown, Emese Kohalmi and Eszter Rendessy kept Hungary’s incredible record in the women’s K2, while Csanad Sellyei and Bruno Kolozsvari won the junior K2 to add to Hungary’s gold medal tally.
Two years after being crowned junior K2 marathon world champions, Hungary’s Emese Kohalmi and Eszter Rendessy were celebrating becoming senior world champions after a perfectly timed race on Sunday.
Kohalmi and Rendessy were in a breakaway group of three for most of the race, with defending champions Renata Csay and Zsofia Voros heading the chase group. At the final portage Kohalmi and Rendessy broke clear of Spain’s Tania Fernandez and Tania Alvarez, with South Africa’s Jenna Ward and Saskia Hockly fighting on for the bronze.
The result continued a run of seven consecutive women’s K2 titles for Hungary. Csay and Voros, winners of the past two world titles, finished fourth. It was the first time in 21 years that Csay, a K2 world champion on 13 occasions, did not win a medal.
Spain made it three in a row in the men’s C2, with Manuel Campos and Diego Romero defending the title they won in China in 2019.
Spain and Hungary have dominated the men’s C2 in canoe marathon, winning every title since 1999. Sunday’s win was the second for Campos, but the third in succession for Romero. It was also Spain’s first gold medal for the championships.
“Everything went to plan for us, at the end of the race we wanted to make a break,” Campos said.
“Sometimes it is more difficult and takes more time to find these gold medals, but today everything went well and we can in the end find the gold medal.”
“We have a very long experience working together, we are very co-ordinated and work well together,” Romero said.
“Yesterday I did not have a good day, but today I needed to check everything that went wrong and it went much better today.
Poland’s Mateusz Borgiel and Mateusz Zuchora stuck alongside the Spaniards until the final sprint, while Hungary’s Marton Kover and Marton Horvath took the bronze.
The depth in Hungarian junior paddling was on show again, with Csanad Sellyei and Bruno Kolozsvari winning the junior K2. Sellyei and Kolosvari finished first and second in the junior K1 24 hours earlier, and were far too strong as a combination for Denmark’s Nikolaj Bryde and Jeppe Maretti, with Argentina’s Baltazar Itria and Franco Marchetti taking the bronze.
RESULTS
K2 MEN
K2 WOMEN
C2 MEN
K2 MEN JUNIORS
