John Gregory | @gregiej | Sportscene - In my live tweets before Peter’s final run I said “Can Peter Kauzer deliver when it matters on his home course? #Tacen”. 9th place in recent races shows great consistency but isn’t up to Peter’s 2011 World Champion standard. He delivered emphatically with the only sub 100 second run time.

Overall World Cup Rankings

Click here to the full official ICF ranking.

Both Jessica Fox (Australia) and Gauthier Klauss & Matthieu Peche (FRA) cemented their leadership in C1W and C2 respectively with three wins each in this year’s ICF Canoe Slalom World Cup series.

Jessica Fox is the only paddler to have been on the podium at all four world cup races so far this season, of which three are wins in C1W. [Golden girl Fox creates history] Bear with me a moment. Richard [Fox] won his first Worlds individual medal, bronze, at the age of 19 in Jonquiere. Myriam [Jerusalmi] won her first Worlds individual medal, silver, at the age of 25 in Bourg St Maurice. In these early days there was no World Cup race series. Jessica won her first World individual medal at the age of 17 in Tacen, with silver in C1W. So with this consistency what should we expect from Jess and her sister Noemie. Mathematically if Jessica makes the C1W final then she will automatically win the C1W World Cup title aged 19. Given that she has been on the podium at the first four World Cup races of 2013 in C1W this would seem highly probable.

Mastery in slalom should be a measured by the consistency of results and scale of the winning margin. Kauzer, Fox and not forgetting Pavol & Peter Hochschorner are in this category. 

Summary Tacen winners of heats, semi-final and final

Medal Table (from individual race events)

Cumulative Medal Table (from individual race events at World Cup 1, 2, 3 & 4)

The ICF made the unusual and tough decision to rerun the K1W and C2 class finals. This was due to fluctuations in the water levels coming out of the hydro plant and was determined to have affected both classes. Power to pumps was lost at the Cardiff World Cup with Matej Benus and David Florence left to run in the C1M final and power was lost at the Lee Valley course during a freestyle championship event. Read also: "Pumps cause delay at Lee Valley". 

The Slovenians were the beneficiaries of the rerun.

With the high number of 50 second penalties in each class in semi or final, Tacen did indeed prove to be one of the toughest and most unpredictable courses in the World. Also read: "Tacen - One of the toughest and most unpredictable slalom courses in the World".

Tacen World Cup C1M final medal positions

Benjamin Savsek (SLO) had the fastest C1 run of the weekend for the second World Cup race in a row with wins in the semi-finals but again finished 9th or 8th in the final respectively.

New 2013 Junior World & Junior European Champion Cedric Joly (FRA) made the cut to the semi-final and finished 26th. It was also Grzegorz Hedwig’s (POL) top place finish in 6th. Fabien Lefevre (USA) world ranked 150 as expected again made the final.

Tacen World Cup C1W final medal positions

Jessica Fox' dominance of C1W continues with podiums in each of the first four races. Her win in the final is all the more impressive given her 4 seconds of penalties. After Kimberley Woods excellent run to win the heat, Jessica then went on to win both the semi-final and final.

European silver medalist Julia Schmid (AUT) had a better World Cup event and secured 6th in her first 2013 World Cup final.

Tacen World Cup K1M final medal positions

Peter Kauzer repeated his win from the last Tacen world cup race in 2011. The 29 year old Slovenian double World Champion won both the heat and final Peter and is now elevated up to 4th in the series.

Germany still dominates the points in the World Cup series with Fabian Doerfler 1st, Sebastian Schubert 2nd and Hannes Aigner 3rd. Their race consistency has continued.

There were great performances from Ondrej Tunka (CZE) and Andrej Malek (SVK) who finished 6th and 8th in the final respectively.

Tacen World Cup K1W final medal positions

A win in one class is impressive, a win in two classes in the same weekend is… well rare. Jessica Fox (AUS) was again the quickest K1W of the weekend and won both the semi-final and final with two runs only 0.09 seconds apart. Class!

Corinna Kuhnle (AUT) was again on better form this weekend with a very quick run to win the heat and then 2nd in the final a mere 0.34 seconds behind Fox. The top 5 K1W were all clear and in the final there were no 50 second penalties.

2012 overall World Cup winner Ursa Kragelj, nor her team-mate Eva Tercelj were able to quite capitalise on their home water advantage to secure a win.

The top 4 K1W in the World Cup series are separated by only 33 points so it is still very open. None have made the final in all four World Cup races.

Tacen World Cup C2M final medal positions

Gauthier Klauss and Matthieu Peche (FRA) made it three consecutive wins in a row and lead the World Cup series after the first four races and so should secure themselves the World Cup series win.

The local supporters roared as local C2 crew Saso Taljat & Luka Bozic secured a win in Friday’s C2 heat. On Sunday, Florence & Hounslow (GBR) were the fastest C2 boat of the weekend with a confidence clear run in 116.80 seconds.

The trend continues as in each of this year’s World Cup finals they have been made up exclusively of European crews.

Overall individual category percentages

The percentages were a little obscure this race weekend. This was likely a result of three key factors. First, Peter Kauzer’s sensationally quick K1M winning time, secondly that the semi-final runs in C1M and C2 were faster than the gold medal run in the final and thirdly the toughness and inherent unpredictability of the Tacen course. The rerun K1W and C2 finals were both quicker than the originals they replaced, most especially C2 which was 5 seconds quicker.

Tacen Team Events

The K1W and C2 teams were cancelled after it was felt necessary by the ICF to take the unusual step of rerunning the K1W and C2 finals. There were insufficient teams to run the C1W team race, and this is actually the reason I have kept the individual and team medal tables separate. A small number of nations in C1W would otherwise disproportionately screw the aggregated table.

The teams pack up and move across the mountains to Bratislava in Slovakia for the World Cup series final coming weekend. The overall World Cup series in C1M, K1M and K1W is still wide open and will go down to the wire. The season is hotting up towards the ICF Canoe Slalom Senior World Championships in Prague next month.

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