Tomas Slovak and Manuela Stöberl are the new ICF Classic Marathon World Series 2012 winners

Tomas Slovak winning the Adige Marathon, in Italy

The ICF Marathon Classic World Series are completed this year with the dispute in a tight October of Cesky Krumlov (CZE) and Adige Marathon (ITA), whose winners have become the winners of the series, replacing Spaniard Kiko Vega and South African Hilary Pitchford, 2011 title holders.  Slovakian Tomas Slovak and German Manuela Stöberl, both specialists in white water descent, got enough points to be the new champions in 2012. Anyway, Tomas Slovak got two victories on a surfski from his sponsor Vajda. With the ICF Marathon Series still in their childhood, they may need some review of the criteria. In South Africa, many years ago, surfskis were banned at river descents, since being longer and watertight, buoyancy in waves and the speed they were getting was an unfairness against the traditional K1. 
The series started in early April with the Devizes to Westminster, terrific English race of 125 miles (about 180 km.) and 77 portages, raced in a single day by K2s, while K1s do it in four stages.

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.