Carlos Pérez Rial and Club Kayak Tudense, main characters at the Galicia Sprint Championship (Spain)

Last weekend was celebrated at Verducido Dam (Galicia, Spain) the Regional Sprint Championships of Galicia, one of the strongest that can be seen in Spain. Despite some absences, due to the Junior&U23 European Championships, to be held from Thursday at Montemor-o-Velho (Portugal), the different races showed a very high level, with some of the first aces of Spanish Sprint on the water.

Ana Varela claimed gold on 500m. over the 200m. winner Tania Fernández

Many were the races competed, but as the most important to comment, we could say that the 1.000 metres distance is patrimony of Kayak Tudense. The strong club from Tui dominated the Senior Men in kayak with no discussion. They took gold and silver in K4, gold and silver in K2 and five of the 9 finalists of the K1 belonged to them, claiming the four first positions. Gold went to Diego Piña, who got a nice triple crwon leading also the K2 and The K4. It was different on the canoe, where they could only take silver after the pushing of the boats from Náutico Ría de Betanzos. C2 of  Antonio Campos and José Manuel Sánchez, who also made the C4 together with Adrián Edreira and Alejandro Fraga, claimed gold in both disciplines. At Ladies distance of 500 metres, Kayak Tudense also took gold in K1 (through Ana Varela), K2 and K4.

In the juniors and U16 categories, podiums were more heterogeneous, showing the good job that always in Galicia has been done with the youngsters, not only at the big clubs, but at the most modests too.

In the shortest distance, the 200 metres, expectation was big to see in action, after many years exclusively focused on Olympics, Carlos Pérez Rial, a.k.a. "Perucho", Gold medalist in Beijing 2008 and who unfortunately couldn't reach this year the Olympic berth for London. He showed again that international gold medals are never achieved in a lucky draw and he took gold in both K1 and K2 (with Rodrigo Tiebo) after impressive performances. We are sure this wins will represent a new boost in his aspirations of coming back to the international top scene in 2013.

Talking about the ladies 200 metres, Tania Fernández could take good revenge of her defeat in the 500 and claimed gold over Carla Pérez and Ana Varela, silver and bronze, who on a K2 got again a new gold for Kayak Tudense, winning in closed finish their teammates Leticia Piña and Valeria Romero.

Finally, Kayak Tudense clearly took the first position at the clubs overall standings of the Championships with 2,227 points, being second the Club As Torres-Romería Vikinga de Catoira and third the Escuela de Piragüismo Ciudad de Pontevedra.

You can check the full results at this link.