Andre Santos | Portugal - The Nelo Winter Challenge 2013 took place yesterday in Montemor with competitors from all continents and 18 countries. 600 paddlers participated in the first race of the season in Portugal.

The first day saw the 2 km time trial for all classes, in the main categories:

• K1 Men: Pimenta POR with a solid 7.40 took the win in front of Ilya Medveded RUS (1st and 2nd the same as last year) and Silva POR.
• K1 Women: Beata Mikolaszik POL 8.48 (Silver medallist from London in K2 500) won in front of Vera Sobetova RUS and Antonija Nadj SRB).
• C1 Men: Mathieu Goubel FRA finished first, in the closest race of all the open classes, by just 3 seconds to Leonid Tish RUS and 3rd also went to Dmitry Petrov RUS.

All others who finished after them all got an idea of where they stood leading up to bigger races later this year.

The sun came out on the second day and the 200m were on, as expected, the level was high. Many great Olympic and World Champions lined up in the different classes.

K1 Men: Arnaud Hybois (double World Champion K2 200) took a close win in front of Spanish presence Carlos Arevalo, Isaac Toro and Saul Craviotto who took 2rd, 3rd and 4th places all in less than 0.13!

K1 Women:  Natasa Douchev Janic does not require any introduction as she is a one of the best athletes of all time; she added one more win to her credit in Portugal in front of Sarah Guyot FRA and 18 year old Francisca Laia POR (another surprise of the first race of the year).

C1 Men: Andrii Kraitor RUS (European U23 Champion) won in front of great paddler Maxim Opalev RUS and Alfonso Benavides ESP (4th C1 200 London 2012) in yet another tight race.

For the 2nd time in a row it was Maxime Beaumont FRA (4th in London 2012 K1 200) who took the men’s crown, K1 Women had a new winner Antonia Nadj SRB and C1 Men was ruled by Dmitry Petrov RUS.

It was great to welcome all these paddlers to Portugal. We are looking forward to the start of the season in May.

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