John Gregory | @gregiej | Sportscene - This review of the Prague World Cup race is also a tribute to the inventor of Kelvar® Stephanie Kwolek who passed away aged 90 this last week. It is impossible to overstate the impact that material science technology has had on canoe slalom since Geneva in 1949. All of us have or still use Kevlar fibre in our equipment. She would have been proud to see Vit Prindis (CZE) win the heat in 78.29 seconds and Hannes Aigner (GER) the final in 87.16 seconds.

The K1M heat appears to be the fastest run time on record. It meant that the first 10 paddlers in the K1M qualification heat were separated by less than 2 seconds. Correspondingly, we are seeing more and more 50 second penalties in the heats, semi and finals as the margins get progressively tighter. We saw one or more 50 second penalty in each of the 5 category finals. It saw the downfall of Sideris Tasiadis (GER) in reaching the C1M final as well as Jasmin Schornberg (GER) in K1W, Kimberley Woods (GBR) in C1W and Mateusz Polaczyk (POL) in K1M.

Prague WC3 race analysis

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

Prague race analysis percentages of K1M winning time

The Prague medal table in individual classes looked like this

The Czech team took full advantage of their home race with wins in four of the team events; C1M, C1W, K1W and C2. Germany secured the team win in K1M. It ensured the Czech’s topped the combined individual table with 9 medals.

World Cup 2014 Rankings

For a full listing of the ranking from the first three World Cup races http://events.slalom.canoeicf.com/standings/standings-2013/standings-2014

C1M

Are we witnessing a new C1 sparring match reminiscent of Lugbill-Hearn, Estanguet-Martikán but now Martikán-Florence? Both look at their best.

Double Olympic Champion Martikán (SVK) took gold, although his body language at the finish suggested he was still disappointed with his run. Martikán now leads the World Cup standing after bronze, silver and now gold in the three World Cup races. Reigning C1M World Champion, David Florence (GBR) is showing exceptional consistency and is regarded by David Ford as the “fittest athlete on the circuit”. Both are in their 30’s and have World & Olympic medals to their names.

That said, this is not a two horse race and notably Benjamin Savšek (SLO) is also on excellent form this season.

Martikán leads Savšek by 9 points after the first three races and with 14 points over Florence. Two World Cup races in 2014 remain.

C1W

Australia, China and Great Britain each secured two athletes into the C1W final.

Jessica Fox (AUS) was unable to repeat her Senior World Championship result cutting too tight on gate 8 and picking up a 50 second penalty, without it she would have won by more than 5 seconds. Instead that honour was left to her team-mate Ros Lawrence.

The Chinese team was again on the podium for the third World Cup in succession. This time it was Nanqin Cen.

Kateřina Hošková (CZE) now leads Qianqian Teng by 10 points with Jessica Fox in third place.

K1M

Michal Smolen (USA) has proven himself a very up-and-coming paddler with this result on the back of his U23 World Championship title. It is great to see a US paddler back on the podium again. It is also such a good year to do so with the Deep Creek World’s coming up in September.

It was an odd final looking at the different mix of nations; Netherlands, Canada, USA, Great Britain. It was Ben Hayward (CAN) second successive World Cup final and the first for Maarten Hermans (NED) and Joe Clarke (GBR).

In the World Cup standing’s there are four Germans and three Czech’s in the top 10 after 3 races.

K1W

The final comprised three boats from the Czech Republic on their home course, two double Olympic champions and four World Champions together with Lisa Leitner (AUT) in her first World Cup final. Another composed solid run from Stepánka Hilgertová (CZE). She was the only K1W in the final to go direct on gates 11-12. Team-mate Eva Ornstova commented that Stepánka’s plan was to secure a solid run on anticipation others will make errors and pick up penalties. Her true experience shone through. Stepánka though looked surprised to see Jessica Fox, Jana Dukatova and Corinna Kühnle all finish behind her.

Ricarda Funk (GER) reigning senior European Champion is a very exciting up and coming paddler this season and kept her cool with an exceptionally quick 99.38 sec clear run in the final. It was almost half a second quicker than Corinna Kühnle’s (AUT) sensationally quick time in the semi-final.

Fiona Pennie (GBR) took a strong lead in her second run of the heats but disappointingly was the only paddler to win the heats not to then make their respective final.

Jana Dukatova now leads Corinna Kühnle by seven points in the World Cup standings, followed by Fox and then Funk.

C2M

This was super exciting. The Slovakian cousins Ladislav & Peter Skantar dominated throughout with the fastest run in the heats, semi-final and final.

Ladislav & Peter Skantar now have a 28 point lead in the World Cup standings over Luka Bozic & Saso Taljat from Solvenia.

The all European final trend continues. It was more representative to see Poland back in the C2 final with two boats in addition to both Germany and host nation, Czech Republic. Correa/ Oliveira (BRA) were the only non-European crew to make the semi-final.

So back to the Kevlar story where we began, Stephanie Kwolek http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephanie_Kwolek was the Polish-American chemist, who working for DuPont invented Kevlar fibre in 1965. http://www.dupont.com/corporate-functions/news-and-events/corporate-news-releases.html David Ford (CAN) tells me the first Kevlar kayak appeared as far back as the 1979 Worlds in Jonquiere. Thank you Stephanie from the canoe slalom community for your contribution to our exciting sport.

Add your comments below on how you see technology has advanced canoe slalom.

Remaining World Cup races:

• World Cup 4 Aug 1-3 La Seu D’Urgell, Spain
• Word Cup 5 Aug 15-17 Augsburg, Germany