Szeged | International Canoe Federation - Day two of the 2013 ICF Canoe Sprint World Cup in Szeged, Hungary. Hungarians show the World all their talent in front of the proudest crowd ever. Germany lead the resistance.

10 finals were programmed for Saturday morning in warm and sunny Szeged. 5000 spectators gathered on the bank of the Tisza river without knowing the show would be even better than what they could dream of. The Hungarian President Mr János Áder, was also present at the National Olympic Watersports Centre.

In the K1 Women 500m the first gold medal was only half Hungarian as the winner and former national star Dalma Ruzicic-Benedek now paddles for Serbia. Despite a very strong start from the German Tina Dietze, Ruzicic dominated the second half of the race. Katrin Wagner-Augustin (GER) and the crowd favorite Danuta Kozak (HUN) took the silver and bronze respectively. “Today was very important for me as I competed for my national selection for the whole season (European and World championships)’, said the newly naturalized Serbian. ‘I had to give everything I got. Yesterday both in heats and semi-final, my start was very bad and I stood two boats behind the other girls. My coach and my husband told me that if I took a good start I could aim at the victory. So I focused on my start and when I saw I was even with Henriette Hansen (DEN), I told myself I could do it! I thought about my technique and ran my own race. The audience was loud and I knew they were cheering for Hungarians but I am Hungarian too so I just went with the flow.” Despite her third place, Kozak was pleased too. “I’m not disappointed, she said. It was a good race only two weeks before the national trials”.

Two other Hungarians had their mind set on the national selections while paddling in the final of the K2W 500m. Anna Karasz and Ninetta Vad had a lot to do against the 2008 Olympic silver medalists Mikolajczik/Konieczna (POL) and the talented Russian pair Sobetova/Podoslkava. But they corrected their mistakes from the heats and semi-final to win one of the most exciting races of the day and grab the gold. “That was not easy’, confessed Karasz. ‘I did not expect us to perform so well. We have had technical problems with the boat, had to do several modifications, and on top of that we trained together only three times recently! We live in different cities and we went to training camps to prepare our national trials at the end of the month. But I have to say the final was perfect. It brings some confidence for our selections. I will be racing K1 and K2 500 meters, and Ninetta (VAD, her partner in K2) will also do the 200 meters.”

The K1M 1000m was far less fiercely contended as the German and Olympic bronze medalist Max Hoff absolutely crushed the opposition, leaving no chance to his opponents from start to finish. This must have been the most impressive domination witnessed at this World Cup. Aleh Yurenia (BLR), who made a strong impression in heats and semi-finals yesterday, took silver and bronze went to the experienced Rene Holten Poulsen (DEN). Hoff was logically satisfied with his performance. “Well, for the first race of the season, that was a good race! I felt very good in my semi-final yesterday and I knew I could achieve something nice today. I am satisfied to have won quite largely because the last 200 meters were painful. It means I am in good shape, despite the fact that I have not trained very hard yet. I guess I benefit from the discipline I kept after the Olympic Games last year.

Then came the race that the Hungarian crowd awaited: the battle between 2008 and 2012 Olympic Champions Attila Vajda (HUN) and Sebastian Brendel (GER). The duel lived upto its billing but the giant German sort of killed the suspense by starting strong and controlling the race afterwards. Vajda tried an outstanding but vain come back. He still managed to laugh about it after the race. “The Germans already had their selections and are ahead of us. I had the feeling that Brendel played around with me. On top of that I saw him drinking a beer yesterday. Maybe that made the difference!” Brendel admitted he felt comfortable this weekend. “Attila came back strong in the last 300 meters and I could see the nose of his boat getting closer and closer. I managed to push harder, it’s a good thing. Racing against Attila is always a great pleasure because I know we always give our best and it makes both of us better and better. It is a new season, I have some very good feelings. Our national selections took place last weekend and I did very well there. My goal now is to win the three World Cups and arrive with confidence in Duisburg for the World Championships at home.”

Hungarians set their mind to gold after letting Germany get away with two victories in a row. Reigning Olympic Champions Kokeny/Dombi set the record straight to the enjoyment of the crowd by winning the K2M 1000m after containing the assault of the Russian pair Ryakhov/Medvedev. “We took a good start’, explained Dombi. ‘We are not at 100% right now, so this success is a good preparation for our national trials.’ Polish pair Szandrach/Kujawski took the bronze.

Vasbányai Henrik and Mike Róbert (HUN) imitated their fellow countrymen a few minutes later to win the C2M 1000m. This was more of a surprise given the recent composition of the crew. “This is a great day for us, especially because our duo is very new. Because of the injury of Marci [Márton] Tóth, we only sat together the first time on Tuesday. But it seems our temporary crew is doing very well”, added Vasbányai.

Germans immediately struck back through Franziska Weber who won the gold medal in the K1W 1000m. She preceded Edita Dzienieszewska (POL) and her teammate Katrin Wagner-Augustin (GER) who added another medal to her collection today.

As if it was not enough that the stars occupy the stage, the Hungarian young duo Hagymási/Horváth showed the seasoned competitors in K2W 1000m that the world needs to be ready for the entry of the junior generation to Canoe Sprint. They beat the other local pair Szilvásy/Szabó and the Americans Hogan/Mcelroy who undoubtedly enjoyed the loud cheers of the Szeged crowd.

In the absence of the Olympic Champions from Australia, the men K4 were willing to leave their mark on this World Cup. The Hungarians looked strong in the heats, and both Russia and Slovakia managed to qualify two crews to the Final. However, none of them could resist the talent and power of the Serbian quartet Zoric/Holpert/Aleksic/Terzic, who rushed in the last 250 meters. “Canoeing is slowly getting more popular in Serbia’, explained Terzic. ‘After we won this morning, I received so many texts congratulating us, it was amazing! Apparently people were in all the pubs to watch the final on TV. We are so glad to be part of the elite group, and we are ready to fight and keep the lead the whole season.” Hungary won yet another silver medal and Russia completed the podium.

The last final of the morning was the C4M 1000m. Hungary, second and third, won its 9th and 10th medals of the day (4 gold, 4 silver and 2 bronze). Russia certainly did not want to finish the day without the Gold and made it pretty clear from the start.

Sunday will stage the finals of all the 200 meters races, plus the K1M, C1M, K2M, C2M, C2W,K4W 500m and the 5000m will draw the curtain on this first World Cup of the season.

STARTLISTS AND RESULTS

Here.

TV

The action will also be broadcasts LIVE on Eurosport, with highights shown later on Eurosport 2

- Sunday 12th May, Eurosport LIVE 10:00 CET / Eurosport 2 HIGHLIGHT 17:30 CET

The whole event will also be avaliable on ICF TV starting on Saturday 11th May at 11:00 CET.

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