Gonzalo Melero | Sportscene - Last Saturday, this year’s Río Negro Regatta (ARG) began, with the first stage being a 46 km race between Neuquen and General Roca. After the withdrawal of the Río Negro kings, Néstor Pinta and Martín Mozzicafredo, who had their 12th consecutive victory in 2013, several pairs were aiming to fill the winner’s spot this year.

Races started at 3pm and with the usual heat and a slightly shallower river than in previous years, paddlers had to be careful not to over-exert themselves if they wanted to make it all the way down through Patagonia before arriving in Viedma next Saturday. Interestingly, after two stages, times are about 15 minutes slower than last year over the same course.

Right from the start of Day 1,There were five couples leading the K2 race: Franco Balboa and José Guerrero, Santiago Scalesi and Luis Amado Pérez (ESP), Agustín Reyes and Guillermo di Renzo, Juan Manuel Scalesi and Julián Algañaraz and, finally brothers Mauricio and Rodrigo Caffa.

As happened last year, the front group managed to heat up the race from the first strokes, and not only because of the strong paddling. During the whole stage, it seems to have been continuous fight between the different pairs, resulting in the Caffa brothers being left with a broken boat and being forced to withdraw. After traveling 1,400 km to participate, their race lasted just over 15 minutes.

At the finish line, there was another contentious issue which has always been difficult to resolve on the Río Negro. After turning left for the finish line upstream, the first group of paddlers claimed they could not see the finish line and so they were unsure exactly where to end their sprint. In spite of this, youngsters Balboa and Guerrero left nothing to chance and moved half a boat ahead of Scalesi and Pérez, while di Renzo and Reyes arrived just a few meters behind.

After arrival, there were some angry exchanges between the top paddlers who were blaming each other for the continuous friction. Franco Balboa put in a complaint against the Scalesi brothers, even accusing them of grabbing his boat a couple of times during the race. "This can not go on, there are people who are damaging the image of this competition. The Scalesis are behaving unfairly” he declared angrily, remembering how last year they also became involved in several incidents which resulted in complaints to the officials.

There was also a close race between the top four K1 contestants, but in the last kilometers Gastón Gaona, one of the favorites, dropped behind the top group and victory went to Alfredo Quiñanao ahead of Sebastián Leyes and Matías Salvo.

The second stage of the race was 59 km and was held on Sunday between General Roca and Villa Regina. As in the previous day, four K2s made the front group (with the Caffa brothers now out of the race) and we saw a new victory in the final sprint for Balboa and Guerrero, who beat Santiago Scalesi and Luis Amado Pérez who finished second, and Juan Manuel Scalesi and Julián Algañaraz who finished third. On this occasion, Reyes and di Renzo failed to make the podium positions.

Although the second stage was more calm thanks to the presence of an official's boat on the course, the heated exchanges between Balboa and Scalesi continued. After the 2nd stage, Balboa was pleased that his K2 were able to have a clean race and suggested that this was because because the Scalesis were intimidated by the presence of judges on the course. Additionally, Santiago Scalesi accused Balboa of having broken the Caffas’ K2 on Saturday and of spending the whole race insulting and bumping the rest of paddlers. "There's no way of paddling with this kid around" Scalesi said.

In K1, Alfredo Quiñanao also repeated his victory, but this time he was closely followed by Gastón Gaona, who had lost precious time in the first stage. This time, however Sebastián Leyes took a swim and lost about three minutes, allowing Quiñanao to get a lead of over a minute on Gaona in the overall standings.

Stages and overall standings: www.regatadelrionegro.org.ar