CANOE-KAYAK Preview: Sprint World Championships start in Portugal

The ICF World Sprint Championships are on this week in the familiar Portuguese canoeing capital of Montemor-o-Velho, with 17 events for men and 13 events for women planned, plus a large number of paracanoe events. A total of 66 nations are entered. The defending World Champions from Racice (CZE) in 2017:

Men:
∙ C-1 200 m: Artsem Kozyr (BLR) ~ also won in 2015
∙ C-1 500 m: Martin Fuksa (CZE) ~ also won in 2015
∙ C-1 1,000 m: Sebastian Brendel (GER) ~ also won in 2014-15
∙ C-1 5,000 m: Brendel ~ also won in 2014-15
∙ C-2 200 m: Ivan Shtyl/Alexander Kovalenko (RUS) ~ Shtyl won in 2014-15
∙ C-2 500 m: Ivan Shtyl/Viktor Melantyev (RUS) ~ also won in 2013
∙ C-2 1,000 m: Peter Kretschmer/Yul Oeltze (GER)
∙ C-4 500 m: Germany (Brendel, Kiraj, Vandrey, Scheibner)

∙ K-1 200 m: Liam Heath (GBR)
∙ K-1 500 m: Josef Dostal (CZE)
∙ K-1 1,000 m: Tom Liebscher (GER)
∙ K-1 5,000 m: Fernando Pimenta (POR)
∙ K-2 200 m: Balazs Birkas/Mark Balaska (HUN)
∙ K-2 500 m: Rodrigo Germade/Marcus Walz (ESP)
∙ K-2 1,000 m: Milenko Zoric/Marko Tomicevic (SRB)
∙ K-4 500 m: Germany (Liebscher, Rauhe, Rendschmidt, Lemke)
∙ K-4 1,000 m: Australia (Wallace, Wood, Fitzsimmons, Stewart)

Women:
∙ C-1 200 m: Laurence Vincent-Lapointe (CAN) ~ also won in 2010-11-13-14
∙ C-1 500 m: New event
∙ C-1 5,000 m: New event
∙ C-2 200 m: New event
∙ C-2 500 m: Katie Vincent/Laurence Vincent-Lapointe (CAN) ~ Vincent-Lapointe also won (with a different partner) in 2011-13

∙ K-1 200 m: Lisa Carrington (NZL) ~ also won in 2011-13-14-15
∙ K-1 500 m: Volha Khudzenka (BLR)
∙ K-1 1,000 m: Alyce Burnett (AUS)
∙ K-1 5,000 m: Dora Bodonyi (HUN)
∙ K-2 200 m: Reka Hagymasi/Agnes Szabo (HUN) ~ Hungary has won 8 of the last 11
∙ K-2 500 m: Caitlin Ryan/Lisa Carrington (NZL)
∙ K-2 1,000 m: Erika Medveczky/Ramona Farkasdi (HUN)
∙ K-4 500 m: Hungary (Takacs, Medveczky, Fazekas-Zur, Vad) ~ Hungary has won this event in 2009-10-11-13-14-15-17!

New Zealand’s Carrington owns seven world titles in all, also winning the K-1/500 m in 2015, and was second in 2013 and 2017 and third in 2011; with a K-4 500 m bronze last year, she has a career total of 11 medals.

The canoeing worlds date back to 1938 and are generally held in every non-Olympic year. Only the men’s K-4/1000 m and the women’s K-2/500 m have been held in all 43 editions.

Look for results here.