John Gregory | @gregiej | Sportscene - Spain’s Samuel Hernanz and Maialen Chourraut went from nowhere to 60 points each for wins at their home World Cup race in La Seu d’Urgell. This was a perfect accompaniment to the 50th anniversary of CADI’s canoe- kayak. Here is a short review of the Seu race and its impact on the World Cup standings.

Seu WC4 race analysis

Seu winners of the respective heats, semi-final and final (penalties shown in brackets).

Seu race analysis percentages of K1M winning time

Interestingly, the medals in Seu were split between only five nations and first medals for Spanish in this World Cup series.

Here is a short summary of each class.

C1M – Canadian Single Men

It was a sensational podium clean sweep for the Slovakian team in the final. Double Olympic Champion Martikán (SVK) maintained his four podium finishing 3rd behind his team-mates. He leads the World Cup series 13 points ahead of Benjamin Savsek (SLO). Savsek managed a clear run in the final to finish 4th.  

Spain’s Ander Elosegi finished 6th 4.26 seconds behind Slafkovsky. 8th in the final was an excellent result for 23 year old Thomas Quinn (GBR). Quinn described what this personal best means for him; "Really happy, it's the first stepping stone to my big goals! Great to putting all the work I've been doing into practice and shows it's starting to pay off."

C1W – Canadian Single Women

Jess Fox finds herself in a similar position going into the last World Cup race of the year leading in the C1 World Cup standings. The win meant Jess spring-boarded from 3rd to 1st in the World Cup standings. She was the only paddler able to make it two consecutive wins in a row in Seu.

Jess and Ros Lawrence shared their insights with Sportscene, first Fox; “It is great racing C1 here in Seu there is a lot of support and it is where I did my first C1 race at the worlds in 2009. I knew I had to lay down run and improve from the semi because I heard that Ross and then Nuria had put down good times so I just tried to focus on using the water which I managed to do and then hold it together on the bottom section which is the hardest part when the arms are tired. In the end it all went to plan so I am pleased.”

“It was fantastic to see Jess set the bar so high with her fast time in the finals. Her 111.26 would have put her 16th in the K1W semi-final or 7th in the K1W final. Nuria also paddled very aggressively which made sure she was hard to beat on her home course. The C1W paddling is getting better race by race, so I was happy to be on the podium”, added Lawrence.

There was a huge support and cheer for Nuria Vilarrubla securing Spain’s first World Cup individual medal of 2014. She was one of three Spanish ladies to qualify for the C1W final; Miren Lazkano finished 7th and Klara Olazabal 8th.

Kateřina Hošková (CZE) was just outside the medals and is still in touch in the World Cup series only 4 points behind Fox. It will all come down to the Augsburg World Cup final on August 16th.

K1M – Kayak Single Men

The final was super tight with podium places split by less than half a second. There were no touches in the final although both Sebastian Schubert (GER) and Vit Prindis (CZE) were both judged to have failed to correctly negotiate gate 12.

There was a different winner in the heat, semi and final. Simon Brus (SLO) won Friday’s heat but didn’t have the same pace on the new course to add to a touch on downstream gate 13. Boris Nevue (FRA) looked strong all weekend with 92.66 in the semi and 92.24 in the final for silver. Samuel Hernanz win also underlined his improvement from a bronze at last year’s Seu World Cup race.

The Seu World Cup resulted in no change in the top 3 of the series standings.

K1W – Kayak Single Women

Olympic bronze medallist, Maialen Chourraut stamped her authority on her local water with a super quick final run. It included a slightest touch with a pole at gate 20 on the front of her buoyancy aid (PFD). Her 103.36 was 3 seconds fastest than Jess Fox in the semi-final and the 101.36 + 2 underlined just how quick she was on the first split.

Meanwhile Fox who had looked especially smooth in the semi-final was judged to have incurred a 50-second penalty on gate 17 in the final and finished a disappointing 9th, ahead of Jana Dukatova. Corinna Kühnle made up enough on the first two splits to secure silver on the podium.

The Spanish ladies were all on form securing all three boats in the final Marta Martinez, Maialen Chourraut and Irati Goikoetxea respectively. Spanish team coach Xabi Etxaniz described on twitter in Catalan; “very happy with the team. La Seu, attitude and work to fight for medals! Great paddlers and technicians!” Maialen added “very happy, excited! Thank you very much for the great support and much hope you have given me!”

Missing from the final was the last World Cup race winner Ricarda Funk from Germany who was unable to go clean on the trigger staggers.

C2 – Canadian Doubles (Men)

Ladislav & Peter Skantar as the World Cup champions for 2013 and now 2014 have positioned themselves as favourites for the World Championships next month. They now lead the 2014 World Cup series by more than 60 points.

Skantar &Skantar started the weekend on Friday by winning the heats and despite Picco & Biso securing the fastest run in the semi they were unable to go as quick in the final to secure a bronze behind their team-mates Labarelle & Peschier.

Slovakia dominated this Seu World Cup with three boats in the final; Skantar/Skantar, Hochschorner/Hochschorner and Kucera/Batik. That and the clean sweep in the C1 medals demonstrates their superiority in canoe classes.

Host nation Spain’s Daniel Marzo & Jesus Perez finished 8th in the final +4.38 behind the Skantars. Ye & Huang from China came close to a World Cup final with 11th in the semi.

World Cup 2014 Rankings (after 4 races)

The Skantar cousins have already mathematically won the 2014 World Cup series with more than 60 points clear in the C2 standings. For a full listing of the ranking from the first four World Cup races http://events.slalom.canoeicf.com/standings/standings-2013/standings-2014.

Cumulative Medal Table (from four individual World Cup series races)

Slovakia has a clear lead in the individual medals table after 4 World Cup races with six golds and a total of 12 medals, same way ahead of Germany in second with 6. They will be hoping to elevate their standing during the World Cup final race in Augsburg on August 15-17th.