Gabi Yankelevich | Sportscene - With more than three thousand lakes and over thirty-three thousand kilometers of rivers and streams, Brandenburg, Germany was the ideal spot to host the 2014 ECA Canoe Sprint European Championships. The conditions for this year’s championships were at times more suitable for a surf ski or sailing competition, but the athletes who train in rough conditions showed their mettle.

Women’s canoe action started off on Saturday July 12 with the Paracanoe events. Great Britain completely dominated all three women’s canoe events. In fact, if all three women’s paracanoe classes were combined into one race, Great Britain would have swept the podium. According to GB Canoeing, athletes train full time in Nottingham with the benefit of UK Sport Lottery funding.  It showed.

In the Women's LTA (legs, trunk, and arms) V1 200 meters (Va’a), Andrea Green took the top spot in :58.7. Russia's Larisa Volik powered through in 1:02 to grab the silver. It was a fight to the finish for the bronze, but Germany's Brit Gottschalk just barely edged out Spain's Maria Calvo for the final podium spot.  Great Britain's Emma Wiggs dominated the Women's TA (trunk and arms) V1 200 final, finishing in :59.6. Ukraine's Nataliia Laguntenko finished strong to take the silver while Poland's Paulina Rutkowska snatched the bronze. Wiggs and Laguntenko were also on the podium in the women's TA K1 (kayak) 200. 

In the final women’s paracanoe race, Great Britain’s reigning world champion Jeannette Chippington made it a clean sweep of Gold for Great Britain by soundly out-distancing her competition in the A (arms only) V1 200. She flew down the course to finish in 1:00, which is a new world record, according to GB Canoeing. Poland's Katarzyna Leskiewicz finished in 1:08 to earn silver and Ukraine's Zoia Ovsii beat out Hungary's Katalin Kajdi for the bronze. Chippington also won gold in the Women's A K1 200. She has quite the necklace collection!

Note that the TA classification will be the one women's canoe event offered in the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games for the first time ever. Athletes classified as "A" will also be able to race in the TA event.

Sunday’s racing featured the much anticipated women’s C1 200 and C2 500.  Bulgaria's 26 years young Power House Staniliya Stamenova finally got the monkey off her back in convincing fashion.  Leading from start to finish, she powered her way past the competition in the Women's C1 200, crossing the line a boat ahead of second place in  :48.7.  She won  Bulgaria’s only gold medal of the competition. While she won the 2012 Canoe Sprint European Championship in the C1 200, she was a bridesmaid in 2013, taking silver at both the Senior European and World Championships. This year, she made some much needed changes in her program and reeped impressive results.  But we know she is just getting started. The Senior World Championships in Moscow (6-10 August) await, and she is hungry for no less than gold. 

The 200m “race” was really for silver and bronze. Less than one second separated second-fourth places. Hungary's Zsanett Lakatos edged out Russia's Irina Andreeva for silver. Bronze medalist Andreeva got a hard push from Czech Republic's Jana Ježová - who just gets faster with every race.  The only Junior in the event, Junior European Champion Daryna Kastsiuchenka from Belarus, was a full second behind Jezova for 5th. Still, it was a phenomenal performance by this young rising star. It’s clear the professional coaching is paying off for these women.

It was down to the wire for the Women's C2 500. Hungary's dynamic duo of C1 200 silver medalist Zsanett Lakatos and Kincső Takács were in second place for the majority of the race, chasing down  Belarus'  Kastsiuchenka and partner Volha Klimava for gold at the very end.  the reighning U23 C2 500 World Champion Hungarians won by a nose in 2:05.875. Belarus came through the line in 2:06.084. The Russian crew of Natalia Marasanova and Olesia Romasenko followed in 2:10.988 to capture the bronze.

It was a great two days of racing by all. Now it’s onward to the Junior/U23 World Championships in Szeged, Hungary (17-20 July) and the Senior World Championships in Moscow, Russia (20-24 August).

NEXT STEPS FOR WOMEN’S CANOE

• There are some key meetings coming up with votes affecting women’s canoe inclusion in the Olympic program and expansion at the World level: 
• The International Canoe Federation (ICF) will hold the XXXV ICF Congress in Warsaw, Poland in 7-8 November, 2014 with Executive Committee meetings beginning 5 November. There will be elections for the 1st and 3rd Vice President positions on the Executive Committee.
• The ICF has informally notified us that they will be voting on the addition of 2 more events at the World level for women’s canoe:  C1 500 and C2 200. 

 - Women’s canoe currently has only  2 events, as compared to 8 events each for men’s kayak and canoe and women’s kayak.

- The ICF declined to consider the women’s C1 5000 event even though there are numerous countries with longer distances offered at national championships and separate marathon canoe events with women’s canoe on the program. [Currently the Pan American Canoe/Kayak Championships is the only continental championships to offer the C1 5000 for women].

- We will continue to work for equal events between men and women at the World Championships by 2016.

• The ICF has also informally stated that a vote will occur for women’s canoe sprint to be included in the Sprint World Cup rankings.  Currently only slalom includes women’s canoe in its rankings.
• The highly successful Women Canoe Cup in Boulogne sur Mer, France will be included as an official World Cup event in 2015.  The ICF will also  vote to make this official for 2015.
• The International Olympic Committee will vote in December 2014 on new events for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics.  The women's Sprint C1 200 and Slalom C1 events are expected to be approved by the IOC.  We anxiously await this vote.

Links

• Results: www.sportscene.tv/flatwater/canoe-sprint/result-archive
• ECA European Canoe Sprint Championships event Facebook page:  https://www.facebook.com/canoesprint
• Video Women’s C1 200m https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lK6qtwwernk
• Video Women’s C2 500m https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RbT7a6G8fF0

Meet the Author: Gabi Yankelevich. WomenCAN International Representative and a biochemistry/pre-medicine student at Elizabethtown College, Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania, USA. A member of the cross country, indoor, and outdoor track and field teams, she is interested in highlighting women's accomplishments and additions to sport's history.