PITESTI, ROMANIA (July 27, 2017) – Canada is sending a strong team of sprint canoe kayak athletes to this week’s ICF Junior and U23 Sprint World Championships in Pitesti, Romania. For the 35 young Canadian athletes, this is a pivotal event to measure themselves against the next generation of elite international paddlers.
“These championships are a really useful indicator of how well a paddler is progressing towards success at the senior level,” said Graham Barton, Chief Technical Officer for Canoe Kayak Canada. “It’s also a great dress rehearsal for those athletes competing next month at the Senior Worlds in the Czech Republic, like Katie Vincent in women’s canoe.”
Barton points to Vincent (Mississauga, ON) as one of Canada’s best chances to medal this week at the U23 level. She captured gold in the Women’s C-1 200m final at last year’s U23 World Championship. In C-2 competition, there are high hopes for the duo of Hannah MacIntosh (Dartmouth, NS) and Nadya Crossman-Serb (Winnipeg, MB) in the C-2 500m and the pair of Rowan Hardy-Kavanagh (Ottawa, ON) and Anne-Sophie Lavoie-Parent (Trois-Rivières, QC) in the C-2 200m.
In men’s canoe, Craig Spence (Dartmouth, NS) has earned some encouraging results in Senior World Cup events this season and expects to challenge for a place on the podium in the U23 C-1 1000m.
In kayak competition, the Men’s K-4 crew of Maxence Beauchesne (Trois-Rivières, QC), Nicholas Matveev (Toronto, ON), Marshall Hughes (Waverly, NS) and Pierre-Luc Poulin (Lac Beauport, QC) is coming off an outstanding performance against strong international competition at the Canada Cup regatta in Shawinigan, Quebec earlier this month.
“And for the athletes competing in the Junior Worlds, this event gives them a good sense for how well they’re progressing down the pathway to what each of them hopes will be an eventual Olympic or Paralympic medal,” added Barton.
Two of the canoe athletes hoping to make a big splash in Romania are Sophia Jensen (Chelsea, QC) and Isaac Finklestein (Ottawa, ON) who dominated their respective divisions at the immediaC Canadian Sprint Canoe Kayak Team Trials last month in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. Jensen, 15, took home a pair of gold medals in the Junior Women’s C-1 200m and 500m events. Finklestein, who paddles out of the Rideau Canoe Club, captured three gold in the Junior Men’s C-1 500m, C-1 1000m and the C-2 1000m.
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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