Photo credit – Hayley Plante

PITESTI, ROMANIA (July 28, 2017) – After an “up and down” first day, Team Canada bounced back on Day 2 to qualify for six “A” finals at the ICF Junior and U23 Sprint World Championships.

Canadian paddlers posted great results in both canoe and kayak sprint events. One of the most inspiring performances came in the U23 Men’s K-4 500m race. After Marshall Hughes (Waverley, NS) was hospitalized due to illness, his replacement, Jarret Kenke (Saskatoon, SK) went down with the same ailment. Alexander Scott (Halifax, NS) filled the vacant spot and, along with teammates Maxence Beauchesne (Trois-Rivières, QC), Nicholas Matveev (Toronto, ON), and Pierre-Luc Poulin (Lac Beauport, QC) the K-4 crew beat a talented international field to win their semi-final and qualify for Sunday’s medal race.

“We were up and down yesterday, so it’s great to see us make a bunch of finals, including the Men’s K-4,” said Canoe Kayak Canada’s Chief Technical Officer, Graham Barton. “It suggests we’re already starting to see positive results out of a more centralized approach to our training program. Having several athletes training together this spring in Lac Beauport, Quebec, has really helped build our depth, and it paid dividends in the men’s K-4 when two of our guys got sick.”

Madeline Schmidt (Ottawa, ON) also gritted her way into A-finals appearance. She held onto third place in the first semi-final of the U23 Women’s K-1 500m by only a quarter of a second.

Other athletes who paddled their way to A-finals included: Nadya Crossman-Serb (Winnipeg, MB) and Hannah MacIntosh (Dartmouth, NS) in the U23 Women C-2 500m; Ailish McNulty (Dartmouth, NS) and Anna Negulic (Halifax, NS) in the U23 Women’s K-2 500m; Rowan Hardy-Kavanagh (Ottawa, ON) and Anne-Sophie Lavoie-Parent (Trois-Rivières, QC) in the U23 Women’s C-2 200m; and 15-year-old Sofia Jensen (Chelsea, QC), who qualified for her second final of the competition in the Junior Women’s C-1 200m.

Saturday’s action will see Jensen and Katie Vincent (Mississauga, ON) leading the charge as they contend for medals in the Junior and U23 Women’s C-1 500m races respectively. Canadian paddlers have also qualified for eight semi-finals on Saturday and will be looking to earn a spot in Sunday finals to compete for a medal.

The official draw can be found here, and you can watch live-streamed coverage of the events on Planet Canoe, the official YouTube channel of the ICF. Canoe Kayak Canada will issue daily highlights of Team Canada performances. Complete event results can be found here.

About Canoe Kayak Canada

Canoe Kayak Canada is the national governing body for competitive paddling in Canada, one of Canada’s top performing summer sports with a total of 24 Olympic medals, and a leader in the Paralympic movement. Canoe Kayak Canada is a member-based organization that includes an intricate network of clubs as well as provincial, territorial and divisional paddling associations. Elite National Team athletes proudly represent Canada at various competitions around the globe – most notably the Olympic Games, Paralympic Games, Pan American Games, ICF World Cups as well as Junior, Under 23 and Senior World Championships. Follow Canoe Kayak Canada on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube.

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