Slovak team and organisers can relax a bit after the second competition day of the 2022 ECA Canoe Slalom European Championships in Liptovsky Mikulaš. Their women's team won European Champion title in today's race and men's C1 trio dominated the individual heats. Hardly a better way to invite fans to come over to Ondrej Cibak Whitewater Canoe Slalom Course on Saturday and Sunday to support their athletes.
It was a demanding course and a tough race for the teams on the start. In women's canoe team event only the three teams managed to get to the finish without 50 second penalty, and those three teams won medals at the end. Slovaks Emanuela Luknarova, Zuzana Pankova and Sona Stanovska won the European champion title ahead of French representatives Laurene Roisin, Marjorie Delassus and Lucie Baudu. Czech Republic with Tereza Fišerova and Satkova sisters - Gabriela and Martina, won bronze medal.
Germans Sideris Tasiadis, Franz Anton and Timo Trummer were the happiest after the men's C1 team event. In a race where all teams made mistakes, they made the least of them, and celebrated gold medal three seconds ahead of Polish team with Grzegorz Hedwig, Kacper Sztuba and Michal Wiercioch. Luis Fernandez, Miquel Trave and Ander Elosegi from Spain were third, four and a half seconds behind Germans. Slovaks - Matej Benuš, Alexander Slafkovsky and Marko Mirgorodsky - were the first favourites, especially after the morning heats, but at the end they were just outside the podium on fourth place.
In the first part of the competition day athletes competed in women's and men's canoe heats and fought for the places in Sunday's semifinal. Slovakian canoeists dominated men's heats. All three representatives finished the competition day in top three places. 2016 Olympic silver medallist Matej Benuš produced the fastest time, and was more than two and a half seconds in front of two locals from Liptovsky Mikulaš - Alexander Slafkovsky in second place and Marko Mirgorodsky in third position.
In women's canoe heats two paddlers from Great Britain finished the day in positions one and two. Kimberley Woods was first and Mallory Franklin second, while Monica Doria Vilarrubla from Andorra finished the first stage of the competition in third place.
Like on Thursday, there were many upsets in the heats. The defending champion in women's C1 Spain's Miren Lazkano failed to qualify for the semifinal, the same as Tokyo Olympic bronze medallist and 2019 World Champion Andrea Herzog. Czech Vaclav Chaloupka, the reigning World Champion in men's C1, will also miss the Sunday's semifinal, as well as Ander Elosegi, 2016 bronze medallist from European Championships here in Liptovsky Mikulaš and 2019 World Championships silver medallist.
On Saturday, the 2022 ECA Canoe Slalom European Championships continues with women's and men's K1 semifinal and final, and extreme slalom time trials later in the day.
LIVE RESULTS: https://siwidata.com/canoelive/#/live/eca/2017
LIVESTREAMING
Thursday and Friday: https://www.youtube.com/c/CanoeEurope
Saturday and Sunday*: https://olympics.com/en/sport-events/2022-eca-canoe-european-slalom-championships-liptovsky-mikuias/
Important:
*Saturday's and Sunday's programme will be exclusively streamed on Olympic Channel, however, because of the TV rights restrictions certain territories will be geoblocked (Slovakia, Czech Republic, Spain, France).
All the races (including Saturday's and Sunday's programme) will be available on Canoe Europe Youtube channel in the week after the championships ends, when the TV rights restrictions will be lifted.
TV RIGHTS holders (check the TV station's programme for exact times):
Slovakia: TV JOJ
Czech Republic: Česka televize
Spain: RTVE
France: L'Equipe
Slovenia: TV Slovenija
Germany: ARD/ZDF
Austria: ORF
Event website: https://canoeliptov.sk/
27.5.2022
