Sprint World Cup 2 in Racice (CZE) pops up promising top paddlers

Racice (CZE) held the second Sprint World Cup 2013 last weekend. It was confirmed back on track the best Ken Wallace, who seems in this 2013 willing to make everyone forget last season. He won the 500 with conviction and in 1000, with Poulsen winner and Yurenia again in silver, the Australian starred in one of the comebacks of the Cup, going in the last meters from 7th to 3th place with a final quarter of 49 seconds, leaving Hoff at the gates of podium.

In K2 200 a new victory of the unbeatable (so far this year) Postrigay and Dyachenko, who day after day recruit new fans in love with their absolute mastery on this race. However, the 500 is still a bit long distance for them and, after a very quick first partial, they finished second on overpassed by the Portuguese Pimenta and Silva, who are performing at a high level after last summer's Olympic silver.

Lisa Carrington (NZL). Photo: Balint Vekassy

In the women's K1, Lisa Carrington ruled the short races. It seems that paddlers from the Southern Hemisphere are in better shape due to their high season during the European winter, because although Carrington took the 200 as expected, also dominated the 500 over the Germans. It is also true that on this occasion the Hungarian team was not racing in Racice and that could be felt in some of the races, as Hungarian Women always are in the bets for the medals.

But now we can focus more on new values ​​who are slowly looming on the international scene.
The post-Olympic years always are more likely to give ground to the second line of the national teams, so they can get experienced at the top level races and, eventually, be able to replace the current champions when it comes the time. In some countries, this policy is discovering us true talents. It's the case of Natalia Podolskaya (RUS), 19, who was second in the 200 after Carrington and is proving to be very fast. Another similar case is that one of the Serbian Marko Dragosavljevic, but with the added effect of a gold in the K1 200 at just 18 years old, ahead of people like César de Cesare, McKeever, Kharitonov, de Jonge, Beaumont ... a real shock from the young Serbian, who was already on the podium at Szeged in K2, but this time could not contain his joy after waiting for the photo finish, which gave him the victory over de Cesare for only 7 thousandths of a second.

At C1, the master's display came from the Czech Martin Fuksa, who just turned 20 and claimed the C1 500 gold with an ease that recalls, with his fine physique, the other Martin, his compatriot, the great Martin Doktor. 

But, from my point of view, the stars of the weekend were the K4 1,000 men of the Czech Republic. They are not newcomers. In fact, they are the current Olympic bronze medalists. But the exhibition that featured in front of their audience was to save on video and show it to the kids to explain how to compete in K4. A tremendous feeling of power and control, of knowing exactly what they are doing, with the determination of who has done it many times and know what their role is and how to run it. Watch specially the slow motion image of Lukas Trefil (second paddler of the boat) in minute 5:44. Just awesome. Here you have the video to mark it among your favorites.