1000m Finals and 200m Heats and Semi-Finals at the 2010 ICF Canoe Sprint World Championships, Poznan, Poland

Saturday 21st August 2010
The crowds came out in force this morning to watch the highly competitive 1000m races for World Championship medals. With perfect conditions in Poznan the stage was set for some exciting Sprint Racing. With the Men’s K1, C1, K2, C2 and K4 races being Olympic events, the competition was particularly fierce.

The 1000m Finals

Men's K4 1000m, Final
Result: FRA, BLR and CZE
Quotes: Men's K4 1000m team: “perfect from beginning to the end and the end was the best, we had a good start, we were great.”

Men’s K1 1000m, Final
Result: Max Hoff (GER), Tim Brabants (GBR) and Aleh Yurenia (BLR)
Quotes: Tim Brabants; “‘It was a hard race as they all are but I really knew it was going to be difficult to beat Max he is in such good form at the moment.”
Max Hoff; “it was a hard race I didn’t have a good start. I tried to catch the others [meaning Brabants] but it was very hard, much harder than last year.”
Big surprise: Ken Wallace and Anders Gustafsson took 6th and 7th place respectively

Women’s K1 1000m, Final
Result: Franziska Weber (GER), Katalin Kovacs (HUN) and Sofia Paldanius (SWE)
Quotes: K1 Women 1000m 3rd Sofia Paldanius; “I felt little bit tired from yesterday I thought I wouldn't be able to get any speed up during the race so, I did an even race and had a good finish.”
K1 1000m Gold Franziska Weber; “Fantastic! I think it was the best race I've ever done. I am surprised that I could do this and I am really happy that I had power in the end to catch up.”
Big surprise: Rachel Cawthorn (GBR) finished 4th

Men’s K2 1000m, Final
Result: GER, HUN and RUS
Quotes: K2 Germany Carolin Leonhardt and Silke Hoermann; “It was a great race for us it was the first time together in the international race, I am proud of us.”


The 200m Heats

Men's K1 200m, Heats
Japanese athlete Hiroki Watanabe finished first in his group and moved to semi with other 5 athletes from his group.
Big surprise: Adam Van Koeverden gave his place to Richard Dober JR to be the Canadian representative for the 200m.

Men's K1 and K2, Semi-Final
Result: the Polish athlete Piotr Siemionowski in the K1 and the British K2 Liam Heath and Jonathan Schofield both recorded the best times in all semi groups.
Big Surprise: the Hungarian K2 team capsized just before the finish line and couldn’t make it to the final.
Quotes: Soren Schust and Jonas Ems (GER), Men's K2; “It was a hard race, it was our best race in the year so far and we hope for final, after the start we got little bit of waves and had some difficulties, we will be better in the final.”
Pablo Andres (ESP), Men's K1; “The weather condition is fantastic and the water was smooth, perfect for competition. I finished the semi second, I am going to be better in final and looking forward to it.”

Men's Canoe 200m

Heats
Except 4 athletes all participants made it to the semis in C1 and in the C2 LUT, RUS and BLR moved to final directly from the heats.

Semi-Final Men's C1 and C2
Result: In the C1 Finalists will be from FRA, CUB, RUS, BRA, LTU, GER, CAN and HUN
In the C2, finalists will be from POL, GER, ROU, CUB, AZE, CHN
Big Surprise: Brazilian C1 athlete finished 2nd in the semi and could make it to the final
Quotes: Bjorn Waeschke and Stefan Kiraj (GER), Men's C2; “We are feeling very good for reaching to final, from start we were good and in the first group, we tried to paddled in a lower rate with foot pressing.”

Women's Kayak 200m
Semi-Final and Heats Women's K1 and K2
Result: In the K1, finalists will be from HUN, POR, JPN, GER, UKR, CHN, POL, SLO, ESP
In the K2, finalists will be from SRB, CHN, AUT, POR, ESP, GER, HUN, POL and SVK
Big Surprise: Chinese athlete Zhou Yu could make it to final A and Jo Bridgen-Jones (AUS), Jessica Walker (GBR) and Henriette Engel Hansen (DEN) will compete in the B final on Sunday.
The 200m Finals will be held tomorrow (Sunday 22nd) afternoon after the 500m finals in the morning.

In-depths stories of the days events are available on the ICF's website on the following links:
canoeicf.com/icf/NewsMedia/News/200m-and...d-Championships.html
canoeicf.com/icf/NewsMedia/News/1000m-Wo...ampions-crowned.html
Full results are available on our website:
canoeicf.com/icf/NewsMedia/News/2010-ICF...onships-results.html
The Official Event website is: www.kayak2010.com/

For more information and picture requests, please email Joanna Greenfield: [mail address protected from spambots with javascript]