Joep van Bakel keeps winning at the Easter Cup in Eindhoven

Last Sunday a new marathon race was born in Holland, the Easter Cup, with a course of 28 km. (with one portage) from Tilburg to Eindhoven. Organized by the local club EKV Beatrix, where the finish line was installed, it also had other two shorter courses for Women, Juniors and U16. Participants form Belgium and Germany joined the Dutch paddlers coming back from the Neerpelt Marathon.

There was a compact first part of the race, with a group of six paddlers, including two Germans and one Belgian. After the first portage, Joep van Bakel (NED) and Corrijn Dries (BEL) broke away, doing the rest of the race together and finishing with the victory of van Bakel at the sprint. Behind, the other four paddlers were Tonny Benschop (NED), Stefan Fiekers (GER), Steffen Luessing (GER) and Olaf Heijne (NED).

Jonas Saelens is the new Belgian Marathon Champion in a race won by Dutch Joep van Bakel at Neerpelt

Left to right: van Bakel, Cremers, Saelens and Broekx. Pic: Marc Faes (Neerpelt.in)

On Saturday it was held at Neerpelt the Kempen Marathon, flagged as Belgian Championships 2013. In a very cold day, the race was open, but first Belgian in each category earned the national title.


At the Men Senior race, over 22 km., a group of four paddlers was leading the race, including three Belgians (Tom Cremers, Toon Broekx and Jonas Saelens) and Dutch champion Joep van Bakel. But the race was broken after the second portage (out of three). It was then when Toon Broekx suffered of cramps in his legs, due to the cold and lost a lot of time until he recovered. Joep van Bakel then saw his opportunitty going onto the water to push hard, leaving behind Cremers and Saelens.

Preview of the 41st Amsterdam Waterland Marathon

Proofreading: Rosalyn Lawrence

In less than a month the 41st Amsterdam Waterland Marathon will take place. On the 20th of April we will see a diverse group of world class athletes taking on the challenge of beating each other and the track record set by Manuel Busto Fernandez, who has won the Waterland marathon twice.
 
Tournament director and ex -European Champion Edwin de Nijs shares his expectations of the upcoming episode of the ICF Classic Marathon series:

"For the senior men’s competition I expect a very tough race for the world class athletes as well as for all others, due to the great variety of international paddlers. Our Dutch representative Joep van Bakel, who finished in 6th place at the last Marathon World Championships, will be challenged by the Swedish Jacob Holst, his training buddy Rasmus Jaruta, the Hungarian Gyula Bauer, Thomas Jezek and Spanish Miquel Adsera.

The Swedish athletes are expected to be very fit since they are practicing an extensive training program in Florida as we speak. They will need to be fit if they want to take on the challenge of beating Thomas Jezek, who in the past has won several medals at European and World Championship races.

Laurens Pannecoucke wins the Gent marathon under the snow

Belgian Olympian paddler Laurens Pannecoucke won this weekends marathon race at Gent (Belgium) under heavy weather conditions, with strong wind, snow and around 0ºC degrees.

Not the best weather for a paddle at Gent... Photo: Olaf Heijne

The senior race, of 26 km., was leaded from the vey start by a group of four paddlers, including Pannecoucke, Bram Brandjes (NED), Joep van Bakel (NED) and Florian Wölke (GER), who were in a compact paddle for most of the race. But at the fifth portage, Pannecoucke and van Bakel pushed hard and went on their own for the last 8 km. There, no surprise with the victory of Pannecoucke, showing his sprint skills over a superb van Bakel. Three minutes later, Brandjes was also beating Wölke in the fight for third position on the podium. More than 6 minutes from the first paddlers began to arrive a larger group also well known marathon paddlers as Jonas Saelens, Erik Verduyckt or Tom Cremers, not having their best day under the extreme conditions.

In the Women's race, victory for Hermien Peters (BEL), who ended in a sprint final with her junior teammate Karolien Plas, winner in her category. And a well known family name winning too at the Men Junior race, with comfortable victory of Dries Broekx (BEL) with more than three minutes over the second position, which went to James Russel (GBR)

Something similar for the Masters, over 18 km., where Olaf Heijne (NED) took control of the race along with Dirk de Visscher (BEL), claiming Heijne the final victory at the sprint by just one second, finishing in a very good time of 1h41'59".

You can check the results at this link.

Tono Campos is the new Spanish Winter C1 Champion over 5,000 metres

The C1 Man Senior served on Sunday morning in Seville to verify, as it happened in the K1 Women, that a new generation of canoeists is on the track to follow the great paddlers already established. Many U23 paddlers and good times in the race.

Campos followed by Romero. Photo: Fotoyos

After a clean enough start, considering they were 70 paddlers (although not without two or three capsizes, as usual in this discipline), the seeded paddlers were grouped on the left side of the channel to slowly become a reduced group of four paddlers in the return to the first turn at the finish line. Diego Romero commanded the race with Sánchez and Campos on the side washes while the young U23 Alan Ávila was hardly keeping the diamond wash, which he lost just by the third kilometre of race, paying the big effort of keeping the strong pace of the big ones.

A little further back, Manuel Garrido tried to close the gap lost after a poor start and came vigorously about 50 meters behind of Ávila, who tried desperately to return to the leading group, but with no success.