News

Full stands in the Vaires-sur-Marne Nautical Stadium witnessed heart stopping final, where 32-year-old Italian Giovanni De Gennaro, who is also the reigning European Champion, won the gold medal ahead of two young kayakers – Titouan Castryck (FRA) and Pau Echaniz (ESP). De Gennaro became third Italian with gold Olympic medal in men’s K1 event after Pierpaolo Ferrazzi (Barcelona 1992) and Daniele Molmenti (London 2012), who is also Giovanni’s coach.

 

“I’m in disbelief. I don’t know what has happened. I’m super happy that I have this piece of gold around my neck, just an amazing day. I’m so happy that my family is here and I can share all these emotions with the crowd. I thought there was still room for someone to get in front of me but in the end the time was enough. It was a really close one and this time the luck was on my side,” said De Gennaro.  

 

Titouan Castryck was only 0.20 second behind to claim silver medal, “I’m disappointed. I was really paddling for the gold today but small mistakes made me second. I made small balance mistakes, so it got me out of the wave and I had to get back two metres so a lot of time lost and when you see 0.20 at the end you missed those two seconds.”

 

Bronze medal went to Pau Echaniz, a 23-year-old paddler, who advanced to the final with 12^th result of the semifinal and was the first one to start in decisive run. “It is my first Olympics and my first medal, this is crazy. I’ve been dreaming about this run for a long time, so this is a dream come true. The semi-final was hard for me, so I knew I could do a much better run. I just went for everything and I got it,” said Echaniz.

 

Two of the favourites for the medal Tokyo Olympic Champion Jiri Prskavec (CZE) and Joe Clarke, Rio 2016 Olympic Champion, both made mistakes that cost them the podium.