Lhe Spanish slalom canoeing kayak teams put together a magnificent performance on the first day of this sport at the European Games in Krakow by achieving the gold medal in the men’s category and fourth place in the women’s category.
The triumph of the trio made up of Pau Echaniz, David Llorente and Miquel Travé It came with a large dose of intrigue. at the end of the test the Spaniards celebrated the victory, but later added one more penalty that dropped him to second place and raised the poles Dariusz Popiela, Michal Pasiut and Mateusz Polaczyk.
Instead, a new revision maintained the initial classification with the triumph of the Spanish team with a time of 97.04after marking 95.04 and penalizing two seconds in a touch by Llorente from Segovia at the eighth gate.
The Rio Eresma Club paddler, who was already proclaimed world champion of this modality in La Seo d’Urgell 2019 together with Samuel Hernanz and Joan Crespo, and the young Echaniz and Travé completed a magnificent descent. Perfect rhythm and coordination.
His time was unbeatable for his rivals. After the claims and revisions, the Spanish were able to celebrate the gold ahead of the Poles (98.48), while the bronze, with 101.58, went to the French Titouan Castryck, Boris Neveu and Benjamin Renia.
Germany, current world champion, could only finish sixthand the Czech Republic, European champion, fourteenth after penalizing 52 seconds.
This is the first gold for Spain in these European Games since last Sunday, since in the last three days our delegation had always been on the podium but never on the highest step. Now Spain has 19 gold medals in total waiting for what happens in the last three days of competition.
In females, Olatz Arregithe triple Olympic medalist Maialen Chourraut and Laia Sorribes they also savored at times a brilliant bronze that in the end was taken from them by another claim, attended, that benefited Franceultimately champion.
The Spaniards were the second to start and set the tone with a good time of 112.87, which became 114.87 after a two-second penalty.
They held out in the lead until first Germany, with 113.17, and then the Czech Republic, with 111.75, surpassed the Spanish, who couldn’t breathe until the rest of the teams finished dropping, the last being France, who was initially separated from the podium by a penalty from Marjorie Delassus at the penultimate gate.
The French paddler assured her team that she had not committed the offense and the claim prospered, with which she took the victory with a final time of 108.87, by 111.75 for the Czech Republic and 113.17 for Germany, with which Spain stayed without the bronze
Five of six paddlers to semifinals
In the individual category, five of the six Spanish paddlers progressed to the semifinals. Only Arregi stayed out, that in the initial set he was twenty-ninth, four seconds behind the twentieth position that he gave the pass and in the second play-off he was thirteenth, just over a second from the tenth position that would have allowed him to be in the test on Saturday.
Meanwhile, Sorribes achieved the twelfth time in the first drop at 3.37 behind the first, the Polish Klaudia Zwolinska, and Chourraut the seventeenthat 4.83, with which both progress was guaranteed.
The three Spanish paddlers, on the other hand, will be in the semifinals. Llorente got sixth place with a time of 85.97, just under five seconds behind the Swiss Martin Dougoudthe fastest, and Echaniz the eleventh, with 87.84.
Travé, on the other hand, made life complicated. She made the thirty-seventh record with 92.40 and had to play it in the second descent. She did not fail and she will be with her teammates in the semifinal.
