Saúl Craviotto and Alfonso Benavides show their London shape at Spanish Sprint Championships

Frenzy weekend of races last days at Trasona Dam (Asturias, Spain) with the Spanish Sprint Championships, with two of our Olympic paddlers doing their last test before giving everything at Eton Dorney in two weeks. Saúl Craviotto (K1 200) and Alfonso Benavides (C1 200) gave no chance to their opponents and claimed gold with terrific performances, showing that their olympic medal assault is in the right way.

Photo Finish had to decide the medals at the K4 200, amazing race

But not only the mediatic olympic paddlers were taking all the flashes. From our point of view, the main character of the event was junior female paddler Begoña Lazkano, who took six golds out of six races by winning K1 200, 500 and 1,000 and then doing the same with her teammate Amaia Benavente on the K2 over the three distances. These girls, under Ekaitz Saies coaching, are definitely looking forward for some exciting future.

Day 1 at Poznan European Sprint Qualifier, the Spanish review

Spain has gone through the first day of the Poznan Sprint European  Olympic Qualifiers with satisfying results. Five boats out of six competing today are already in tomorrow finals. The C2 1.000 of Bouza/Fernández was already into the final as there are just 9 contestants.

Of those racing today, only the K1 200 of the Saúl Craviotto is pending of a semifinal tomorrow morning. Luckily, it seems that he will be paddling an easier semi, as in the second one people like Öström, Balciunas or Novakovic won't be able to fail if they want the three positions going to the final. Already waiting, as they qualified straight from the heats, are the Italian Rizza, the Belgian Richard and the Ukranian Kharitonov. Nevertheless, we will see which aspect shows tomorrow the weather at Poznan, after a cold and windy day today that made the course bumpy and tough to paddle, even more in such an explosive distance as the 200.

Teresa Portela gets the passport for London 2012. All the results of the Spanish Cup on 200 and 500 metres

Teresa Portela

This weekend was held at Verducido Dam (Galicia, Spain), the last national women’s trials and the Spanish Cup over 200 and 500 metres, so the Spanish Team going to Poznan trying to qualify the last boats for London 2012 is now ready. Teresa Portela, who already qualified the Women K1 200 for the Games at Szeged World Championships, got the final nomination in her distance, so now it’s the third Spanish paddler with the assured passport after David Cal and Alfonso Benavides.

In the 500 metres, Ainara Portela (not a relative of Teresa, by the way), was the winner and got the place for Poznan, leaving out Beatriz Manchón and Zomilla Hegyi, among many others.

In the K2 500, Beatriz Manchón and Jana Smidakova, who already were the defenders of the place, easily won the trial, with a 5 seconds distance over Eva Barrios y Laura Pedruelo. You can check the trials results here.

Then, it was time for the Spanish Cup. Many contestants on all the races with more than 50 paddlers in some of the disciplines and with a very hogh level, having very tight times for the cut off to semifinals.