Marathon World Cup in Denmark (part I): Spanish Iván Alonso claims gold in K1

Last weekend was held at Lake Bagsværd (Copenhague, Denmark) the Marathon World Cup 2012, as a prelude for the Marathon World Championships that will take place at the same spot next year 2013, getting the relay from Rome 2012. And once again, Spain had a strong presence in the final standings, claiming gold in both main categories, the senior Men K1 and K2, through Iván Alonso and the couple Walter Bouzán-Álvaro Fiuza, current world champions for two years in a row. But despite some absences, like South Africa or Hungary, the battle was hard, with many tight endings along the weekend.

On the right, Morten Minde (NOR) leads a crowded group at Lake Bagsværd

With an early start on Saturday, the juniors already gave the crowd a nice race. In the K1 Men, seven boats were in a close fight for the whole race, but finally finished with a sprint between the four on the lead and medals went to Casper Pretzmann (DEN), gold; Miguel Llorens (ESP), silver; and Hynek Chroust (CZE), bronze. In the Women race, another local victory in a tight finish, with Amalie Thomsen (DEN) claiming gold, Amy Ward (GBR) went for silver and Carolina Massagues (ESP) took bronze.

After the juniors it was turn for the canoeists. In a pretty windy day, some had troubles, most of all at turns and the portage entry, where wind blowed sidewards. Then, current U23 world champion, Spanish Manuel Garrido, fell in the water and had to give up, while Nuno Barros (POR) showed a strong performance that finally gave him a comfortable gold medal, followed by Matthias Erbhardt (GER) in silver and Jakub Brezina (CZE) in bronze.

Marathon and Surfski start their season in Spain

After two months with everybody focused on the 5.000 metres races, Spanish canoeing season spreads now towards spring in a variety of disciplines and two out of them have already seen their first competitions this last weekend.

This is the case of the Spanish Surfski Cup, which consists on five races mostly along the Mediterranean coast. The first one was held last Saturday at Denia (quite closed location to Villajoyosa, where the International Euro Challenge will be held on May 4th). Borja Estomba (Feve - Oviedo Kayak) in K1 and the U23 Iñaki Bisellach and Biel Palmer (R.C.N. Palma - O.S. La Caixa) in K2 claimed victory to start leading the Spanish Cup under a sunny weather and rather calmed water.

You can read at this link the full results.

Further North, at the Basque Country, it was also held the Regional Marathon Championship, where 2011 Spanish bronze medalist Xabier Ruiz de Aretxabaleta (Donostia Kayak) went for gold beating in a closed sprint the former world champion Jorge Alonso, who was participating as a guest.

Xabier Ruiz is the new Basque Marathon Champion

In a rainy afternoon at Orio's bay, the K2 category was closely competed for the first half of the race, with four boats fighting in a leading bunch through the first kilometres, but it was broken up at the first portage at the beach and the final victory went to Iosu Ansola and Haize Galarraga (Itxas-Gain K.E.).

The full results can be checked at this link.