French kayaker, one of the best whitewater paddlers in the world, Nouria Newman won the tenth edition of the Adidas Sickline Extreme kayak world championships in Austria. Martina Wegman (NED) and Jennifer Chrimes (GBR) joined Newman on the podium in women’s event, while in men’s kayak event Aniol Serrasolses (ESP) and Alexander Grimm (GER) picked up silver and bronze medal respectively. Sam Sutton (NZL) became the World Champion. The jubilee edition of the extreme kayak world championships brought excellent paddling and exciting races with 175 athletes from 33 countries on the start of the infamous Wellerbrücke rapids in Ötztal.
In an all European Women’s kayak final French paddler Nouria Newman produced the fastest time to claim the World Champion title. After setting the record of the course in the semi-final she was the main favourite for the gold. Last year she finished second.
“It feels great to become World Champion! It was frustrating last year to have good runs all the way through to the finals and then mess up my final run. To be able to pull it together today, just makes me really happy. And I hope I can come back next year and have more clean runs and try to be even faster. It’s a big race, everyone is fast - so to just manage to have a good run in the final and take the win is just a great feeling, I’m really happy - it was hard,” Nouria said.
Martina Wegman from Netherlands, last year’s bronze medallist, finished the final run in second place, and Jennifer Chrimes, 2015 silver medallist, finished in the bronze medal position. Anne Hübner (GER) and Marieke Vogt (AUT) also paddled in women’s final.
In men’s final last year’s champion Aniol Serrasolses (ESP) finished the challenging course in the second place, 0.28 seconds behind Sam Sutton (NZL), who picked up his fourth extreme kayak world champion title. 2008 Canoe Slalom Olympic Champion Alexander Grimm (GER) finished the men’s final in third place.
The new world champion Sam Sutton found only positive words for his European opponents who joined him on the podium – 26-year-old Serrasolses and 31-year-old Grimm, “And it’s good to switch it around with Aniol. Last year he beat me by hardly anything and he’s an incredible paddler. Alex stuffed it up at the start, those German muscles just marched and powered him down to the bottom - very, very impressive!”
9.10.2017
