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Slalom Euro 2011- Finals C1 Women, C1 Men and K1Men
Last day of European Championships, Sunday 12th of June, was the best day for spectators. Weather was amazing and we could see very interesting race.
The semfinals started at 9.30 with C1 women. From 12 boats, 10 went to final. All three fastest boats made clean run and first finished Caroline Loir followed by Claire Jacquet, both from France and third Mira Louen from Germany.
In C1 men semifinal was Tony Estanguet from France fastest. Second finished Sideris Tasiadis from Germany and third Ander Elosegi from Spain. Matej Beňuš from Slovakia, Benjamin Savšek from Slovenia and Christos Tsakmakis from Greece didn’t get to finals.
In K1 men 3 paddlers got 50 second penalties and few very good athletes didn’t make it to final as Campbell Walsh from Britain, Vávra Hradílek from Czech Republic or Hannes Aigner from Germany. The winner of semifinals was Fabien Lefevre from France, second Samuel Hernanz from Spain and third Alexander Grimm from Germany. Everyone was impressed by junior in Czech team, Jiří Prskavec, who was all the time making very fast and clean runs.
Finals started in the afternoon with C1 women. Caroline Loir was fast enough to keep her position after semifinals. Silver medal went to Mira Louen and bronze to Lena Stoecklin.
Tony Estanguet showed his top form winning gold almost a second ahead silver Alexander Slafkovský from Slovakia and third Denis Gargaud Chanut from France. Slafkovský said after the race, he is very happy he is standing at the podium forth year and still it’s not the first place.
After all K1 men came to finish, we almost didn’t see medal ceremony on time, as there was the protest and everyone was waiting the result. After 2 years Daniele Molmenti from Italy won the European title, silver medal went to home paddler Samuel Hernanz and bronze medal to only 18 year old Jiří Prskavec who was unbelievable happy. Fabien Lefevre had the fastest time, but he got the 50 second penalty and make protest.
In C1 men team gold took France, silver went to Germany and bronze to Czech Republic.
In K1 men teams were Slovenians fastest, second finished Poland and third France. During the medal ceremony Fabiene Lefevre didn’t accept the medal from the president of ECA, Albert Woods, because Fabiene doesn’t agree with the new rules and changes of ECA. After discussion during the medal ceremony, he was standing at the podium with only flowers.
ECA 2011 Canoe Slalom European Championships are over and we can look forward for the 2012 ones which will be held in Augsburg in Germany.
In 2 weeks series of World cups starts in Tacen in Slovenia, followed by L’Argentiere in France, Markkleeberg in Germany and final one in Prague, Czech Republic. In the middle of the summer there will be pre-olympic test event in London, Great Britain. This season seems more busy with this number of good races.
Article by Zorka
All results and videos are available on siwidata. |
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