National trials have decided Spanish teams for the Sprint European Championships

Last weekend, through two different trials, held at the venues of Verducido (Galicia) and Trasona (Asturias), Spain have decided its teams to paddle at the European Championships to be held at Zagreb (CRO) for the seniors in late June and at Montemor-o-Velho (POR) in mid July for juniors and U23.

No doubt about the main character at this trials: Javier Hernanz, after his olympic dissapointment, has won the three events he was competing at: K2 500 and K2 1.000, with his usual partner Diego Cosgaya, and also the K1 5.000, where he got the bronze medal at World Cup 1 at Poznan, last week. Also to remark the victory of Íñigo Peña in K1, both in 500 and in 1.000, earning the right to represent Spain at both the senior and the U23 Europeans, as it's also the case of Carlos Arévalo. This last one, who already showed a great performance at the 200 metres Spanish Cup, winning both K1 and K2, took this time the K1 spot, leaving second the main favourite, the Basque Ekaitz Saies. Something similar happened at the K2, where almost nobody was betting for youngsters Paulino Otero and Cristian Toro, who surprisingly left out of the National Team current and former World Champions, like Fran Llera, Pablo Andrés or Carlos Pérez Rial.

It's hard for him the case of this last one, who just 10 days ago was still on the fight for the Olympic berths to defend in London his K2 Olympic Gold achieved at Beijing 2008 with Saúl Craviotto and now, barely two weeks later, he's out of the national team for the international championships for the first time in 13 years. A hard beat for him, but surely he will come back to show his outstanding class in 2013.

At the junior trilas in Trasona, two particular stars sparkled among all the others: Marcus Cooper in Men and Begoña Lazkano in Women won both distances, the long one (1.000 for Men, 500 for Women) and the 200.

You can check the full results at the following links:

Senior and U23
Junior