European Canoe Association

Sabero is ready for the 2021 ECA Wildwater Canoeing European Championships

9.8.2021

It has been quite some time since the wildwater paddlers had the last opportunity to show their skills at one of the highest level international Wildwater competitions. The last championships in this canoeing discipline was the Wildwater Sprint Canoeing World Championships in 2019 that was held in La Seu d’Urgell and now the wildwater canoeing family returns to Spain for the 2021 ECA Wildwater Canoeing European Championships in Sabero.

The Covid-19 pandemic took a heavy toll on Wildwater Canoeing paddlers. They were left without the 2020 World Championships as well as World Cup races. The competition series resumed early in July 2021 when Banja Luka hosted the World Cup races and the first Championships after two years comes this week.

Sabero, a village in the province of León, Castile and León, in north-western Spain, will host the 2021 ECA Wildwater Canoeing European Championships between Wednesday and Saturday.

A little over 100 athletes from 15 European countries (Austria, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, North Macedonia, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Switzerland and Spain) are ready to fight for the medals over four competition days.

On the start list we can find many well-known names of this canoeing discipline such as Mathilde Rosa, Cecilia Panato, Lise Vinet, Phenicia Dupras, Sabine Fuesser, Normen Weber, Stephane Santamaria, Quentin Dazeur, Ondrej Rolenc, Paul Jean, Simon Oven, Marcel Paufler, Finn Hartstein, Maxence Barouh, Felix Bouvet,Anže Urankar, Nejc Žnidarič as well as new names. Among the newcomers who will aim high will be young Slovenian kayaker Ana Šteblaj who excelled at this year’s World Cup races in Banja Luka. Spain will be represented by sixteen athletes with Guillermo Fidalgo de Leon probably aiming the highest positions at a home course.

The 2021 ECA Wildwater Canoeing European Championships will start on Wednesday with individual classic race, followed by classic team events on Thursday. On Friday we will follow individual heats in wildwater sprint canoeing. Two heats runs will be held on Friday. After the first run the fastest five competitors of each event will advance directly to the final, while the others will fight for the remaining spots in the second heats run. In the final 15 fastest kayakers (men and women), the top 12 canoeists (men and women) and top 10 C2 crews (men’s and women’s) from the heats will start. On Saturday the Championships will conclude with individual sprint finals and team sprint finals.

COMPETITION PROGRAMME

Wednesday, 11 August 2021

10:00 -13:00 Individual Classic Race

Thursday, 12 August 2021

10:00 -12:10 Team Classic Race

13:00 -14:00 Medal Ceremony

Friday, 13 August 2021

9:00 – 11:35 Individual sprint heats – 1^st run

16:00 – 17:55 Individual sprint heats – 2^nd run

Saturday, 14 August 2021

9:00 – 11:00 Individual sprint final (15 boats WK1, 12 boats MC1, 15 boats MK1, 12 boats WC1, 10 boats MC2, 10 boats WC2)

15:00 – 15:50 Team sprint final