Canada excelled on the penultimate day of the Dragon Boat World Championship at Idroscalo, Milan. The Canadians dominated the podium with gold medals today.  Russia continued their success as did Hungary.  Satisfactory results for Germany, which have collected three silver and three bronze medals, while the United States and Italy had to settle for a silver and a bronze medal each today.

The rain yet again played a part in the last stages of the competitions and the award ceremonies, however athletes and spectators continued to enjoy this great Championships.

Reflection of the top teams

Very pleased with the performance of the team, the Russian team-leader Elena Iskhakova: "Yes, we are pleased with our results, the team is composed of 80 athletes, including the masters and is very strong, full of athletes with different specialties of canoeing, and we hope to continue with victories and podium finishes until the end of the races."

Russia were not so lucky during the women’s pursuit events over 2000m where they were disqualified for ramming the leading boat while turning around a buoy.  The Cheif judge ruled that the Russian boat should have yielded or slowed down.  Russia missed out on another medal unfortunately.

The Hungarians were in reflective mood for the misfortune that befell them on the first day of finals: "We have put together a number of second places where we wanted to have gold medals," explains Peter Remenyi, "We are a huge team, 186 people for all crews in all categories except juniors, for us it was a great organisational effort, we hope to do better on the last day. "

A contented Martin Alt, the German team-leader, "Yes, we are pleased to have well-placed our boats in all categories, we have obtained good positions thanks to the many kayak and canoe champions, from Canoe Sprint who took to the water in our crews."

We like the field, an international experience with many countries competing is a great experience.

Even the Americans say that they are very happy with the organisation of the event "We are  78 athletes with 36 crews, we are very tired with each of us running in more than one event, but we are very happy to be here," says Michael Blundetto The U.S. team leader, a Sicilian grandfather and a passion for Italian cuisine: "It's important to carry out events of this magnitude, it is good that we are talking about the sport, the Dragon Boat is a passion that can infect anyone."

Find information, schedule and results on the official website of the 2012 ICF DRAGON BOAT WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS: www.idroscaloclub.org/dragon/eng/live.html