Michael Noyelle | ICF - Poland and Hungary proved to be the dominant nations winning five medals each as the action unfolded on the first day of finals at the 2014 ICF Canoe Sprint Junior and U23 World Championships in Szeged, Hungary.

The hosts impressed with three gold, a silver and bronze, as the vocal crowd spilled out of the imposing grandstand to line the banks and inspire their heroes to podium success.

Daniel Jonatán was the first Hungarian to deliver, comfortably winning the C1 Men Junior 1000m final. Bence Dombvári followed his compatriots’ lead and secured the K1 Men U23 1000m world title.

Later the K2 Men U23 1000m partnership of Tibor Hufnágel and Benjamin Ceiner won Hungary's third gold, finishing off a superb morning for hosts.

Polish Power Paddling

However, it was the Polish kayaking quartet of Justyna Iskrzycka, Paulina Paszek, Anna Pulawska and Kataryna Kolodziejczyk that were the first to experience victory, edging out Russia and Hungary in the K4 Women Junior 500m final, they duly celebrated with an ear-piercing shriek that confirmed their success as they coasted beyond the finish line.

This victory seemed to act as a catalyst for the rest of the team and was swiftly followed with a silver medal from their more senior counterparts in the K4 Women U23 500m.

The success continued in the men's events with the C2 Junior duo of Aleksander Kitewski and Marcel Holdak winning gold, followed by two bronze medals in the K1 Men U23 and the C2 Men U23, all over the 1000m distance.

Delighted with his teams progress Maciej Juhnke, the team leader of Poland, said, "This is a great day for us. These five medals show how much our performance has improved since last year in Welland. Today the K4 Women Junior were in good shape and their gold medal on 500m motivated the whole team.”

"With a silver medal too in K4 Women U23 500m, we have a lot of potential for the future. This is looking good for the Olympics Games. It might be too early for this generation to shine in Rio, but they will be ready for Tokyo in 2020."

"Our C2 Junior Men's duo has been performing well this year with two silver medals in the Junior Europeans last month on 500m and 1000m. They came here well prepared and managed to reach one step higher. Now some of the U23 athletes are going to focus on Moscow: two girls from the K4, our bronze medallist on K1 1000m Rafal Rosolski and the C2 Men."

Capsize costs the Czech Republic

Drama unfolded in the K1 Men Junior 1000m when the comfortable leader at the 750 metre mark, Tomas Vesely (CZE), unexpectedly capsized leaving the door open for Peter Artuur to collect Belgium's first U23 World Championship gold.

Denmark's Morten Graversen won silver and Pelayo Roza from Spain the bronze.

It was another close call for the Czech Republic in the K2 Men Junior 1000m; they were edged into second spot by the slimmest of margins by the German duo, Max Lemke and Marc Poth.

However, Martin Fuksa (CZE) managed to secure a gold for the central-Europeans in a thrilling C1 Men U23 1000m.

"I feel great after winning this gold. This was my race today. The start was really hard but I managed to finish quite strong and get what I came here for, the world championships title," said the young Czech.

"I am now going to Moscow in C1 Men 1000m and 500m. I want at least one medal there. I need to train more, more even more. I still have a big margin for improvement; I need to work on strength, endurance and a better technique. "

Russia and China each claim a world title

Russia were dominant in the C2 Men U23 1000m final as Alexey Korovashkov and Ilya Pervukhin outclassed the rest, winning by a clear margin over the Ukrainian and Polish boats.

"We realised yesterday after the semifinal that we could do something here. Today we aimed at gold or silver. We have been working together for seven years now; we know each other very well. All this work paid up today," said Pervukhin.

"Now we are going to focus on the senior world championships at home in Moscow. Alexey (Korovashkov) will compete on the C2 200m. I will race in the C4 1000m. Together we have big hopes for the future, but we need to continue working together."

Equally united as a team, was the Chinese K4 Women U23 500m gold medalist, which is surprising, as they have only trained three times together prior to this event.

Coached by double-Olympic medalist, Martin Marinov. The team Chinese quartet showed remarkable resolve to produce the race of their lives. Talking after their victory Wenjun Ren was clearly delighted at gaining her first world title and was keen to credit Marinov for their performance.

"We feel blessed and excited. The gold medal is what we wanted. We tried to focus more on the effectiveness and power of each stroke and not the stroke rate. We believe we won the race in the second half. Now we will prepare for Moscow and will aim to step on the podium. We don’t know yet which athletes the boat will be made up of. We owe of improvements to our new coach Marinov."

This is the second spell in charge for Marinov who shared his optimism about the nation's paddling future at the finish line. ,

"There is a lot of material, athletes. Rocks to be turned into diamonds. Lots of quality athletes that we can choose from to then work on their technique and mentality. This gold medal in K4 is important to step up; we didn’t focus on this competition particularly.

"We’re looking at next Olympic Games. Right now we are three weeks from the World Championships and we still don’t know what the K4 will be made up of. Everything we are doing right now is a preparation for Rio 2016."

"Currently we are a little bit behind but we are trying to catch up. At the top level you’ve got Hungarians, Germans, Russians, Belarus, British, but we’re in the right direction. The keyword to go further is self-belief."

With a flurry of medals across both slalom and sprint this season China is certainly beginning to believe.

2014 ICF Junior and U23 Canoe Sprint World Championship medallists

K4 Women Junior 500m   
Gold - Anna Pulawska, Paulina Paszek, Katarzyna Kolodziejczyk, Justyna Iskrzycka (POL)   
Silver - Inna Nikitina, Varvara Baranova, Liudmila Odintsova, Kristina Kovnir (RUS)   
Bronze - Noémi Lucz, Zita Jankó, Dóra Sólyom, Cintia Papp (HUN)   

K1 Men Junior 1000m   
Gold - Artuur Peters (BEL)   
Silver - Morten Graversen (DEN)   
Bronze - Pelayo Roza (ESP)   

C1 Men Junior 1000m   
Gold - Jonatán Dániel Hajdu (HUN)   
Silver - Serhii Tarnovskyi (MDA)   
Bronze - Vladislav Chebotar (RUS)   

K1 Men U23 1000m   
Gold - Bence Dombvári (HUN)   
Silver - Jordan Wood (AUS)   
Bronze - Rafal Rosolski (POL)   

C1 Men U23 1000m
Gold - Martin Fuksa (CZE)   
Silver - Oleg Tarnovskyi (MDA)   
Bronze - Pavlo Altukhov (UKR)   

K4 Women U23 500m   
Gold - Wenjun Ren, Qing Ma, Jieyi Huang, Xue Li (CHN)   
Silver - Aleksandra Janicka, Joanna Bruska, Aleksandra Gorna, Martyna Lisiecka (POL)   
Bronze - Anzhelika Chervova, Maria Alexandrova, Svetlana Chernigovskaya, Karina Valiakhmetova (RUS)   

K2 Men Junior 1000m   
Gold - Max Lemke, Marc Poth (GER)   
Silver - Filip Skladal, Jakub Zavrel (CZE)   
Bronze - Oleg Gusev, Vladislav Blintsov (RUS)   

C2 Men Junior 1000m   
Gold - Marcel Holdak, Aleksander Kitewski (POL)   
Silver - Jonatán Dániel Hajdu, Levente Gellért Balla (HUN)   
Bronze - Leonid Valentin Carp, Stefan Andrei Strat (ROU)   

K2 Men U23 1000m   
Gold - Benjámin Ceiner, Tibor Hufnágel (HUN)   
Silver - Simo Boltic, Vladimir Torubarov (SRB)   
Bronze - Kostja Stroinski, Lukas Reuschenbach (GER)   

C2 Men U23 1000m   
Gold - Ilya Pervukhin, Alexey Korovashkov (RUS)   
Silver - Yurii Vandiuk, Andrii Rybachok (UKR)   
Bronze - Mateusz Kaminski, Michal Kudla (POL)

Links

• Official website - http://szeged2014.com
• Start Lists & Results - http://results.digicorp.hu/competition/16777303/races
• Schedule - http://szeged2014.com/en/iamclueless/program
• Live Stream - http://www.archive.sportscene.tv/flatwater/canoe-sprint/news/livestream-junior-u23-canoe-sprint-world-championships-szeged-hungary