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The 31-year-old kayaker Mindaugas Maldonis was named best Lithuanian paddler of the year for the second year in a row. Among his major successes in the year 2022 are silver medal in the K2 500 m at Canoe Sprint World Championships in Dartmouth and bronze medal in the same event at the Munich 2022 European Championships. Both medals were won in a double with Andrejus Olijnikas. Maldonis was also a member of a K4 500 metres crew in the World Cup series that picked up bronze medal.

 

The athlete who was the only Lithuanian representative at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics last year won his second consecutive award thanks to the votes of expert commission of the Lithuanian Canoe Federation and votes of the readers of the 15min.lt news portal. It was a tough competition, since many excellent paddlers were also contenders for the win. Besides K2 partner Andrejus Olijnikas also Henrikas Žustautas, Vadim Korobov, Artūras Seja, Ignas Navakauskas and Simonas Maldonis.

 

“I would like to share this cup, awarded to the best Lithuanian kayaker, with Andrejus Olijnikas, with whom we won silver medal at the World Championship and bronze medal at the European Championships. I won just because of the fact that extra points were awarded for my performance in the K4 crew. Andrejus really deserves to win this Cup as much as I do. It is a pity that due to the rules, the Cup cannot be won by two people,” said Maldonis.

 

The best young paddler of the year is Tomas Jusevičius.