International Canoe Federation

This morning the Canoe Sprint World Cup awoke to another glorious day of sunshine. Dusting off the remnants of last night's After Work Party, the clear blue skies perked everyone up. This the second day was dedicated to the 1000m events and the athletes did not disappoint.

Up first was the Women's K1 1000m. What a wonderful race for Rachel Cawthorn (GBR). This young British athlete built a lead of more than 3 seconds over rival Franziska Weber of Germany. After picking up her gold medal, Rachel told the ICF “My strategy in Duisburg is to focus on the Olympic distances but I am very happy with my performance in the 1000m today’’. Bridget Hartley (RSA) who was also happy with her performance commented, “The end was hard but it felt really good’’.

With Vadim Menkov (UZB) in superb form this weekend, Germany's Sebastian Brendel was going to have a real battle in the Men’s C1. Although, Brendel had a good start he could not keep up and by the end of the race Menkov was able to cross the line with a boat's length spare to win the gold. Canada's Mark Oldershaw came in third to take bronze.

In the Men’s K1 1000m, we saw a familiar trio finish on the podium. These are names we often see racing at the top, Max Hoff (GER) and Adam van Koeverden. Yet again, the young rookie, Aleh Yurenia (BLR) proved that he was no flash in the pan, he took bronze in a well contested 1000m. Max Hoff was clearly pleased with his performance, talking after winning his latest gold medal he said, “I had a very good start and finish and a good race all together... ’’

The Chinese delegation was thrilled when the pair made up of Wenjun Ren and Lamei Yu gave China its first Gold in Duisburg in the Women's K2 1000m. Trailing the Chinese pair were the Slovakian athletes, Ivana Kmetova and Martina Kohlova. The Slovaks later told the ICF; “We are happy with the competition today, we have been in medal position twice since the start of competition, and we hope that tomorrow we will be in medal position again.”

The home crowd were happy to see Erik Leue and Thomas Lück come first in the Men's C2 1000m as did Martin Hollstein and Andreas Ihle in Men's sK2 1000m. Both teams taking two more golds for Germany to bring the tally of the Team to 6 golds and 4 silvers by mid afternoon.

The success of Germany concluded with another victory, this time in the Women's K4 1000m, where the German team won with no opponents close by. China took second and Belarus was awarded the third position. On finding out that they had just won the bronze, so did the rest of Duisburg. They were one happy team.

Germany continues to excel on home course with 7 additional medals today, including 4 golds and 3 silvers. The medal table remained basically the same except for Canada who moved one spot over Lithuania. New comers to the podium on Day Two were Belgium, China, Czech Republic, Poland, Republic of South Africa, Romania and Uzbekistan.

Join us tomorrow to find out what happens in the 500m and 200m relay finals. The promise of another day of hot weather will help bring some exciting paddling.

For live results visit www.kanuduisburg.de/erg_2010/Zeitpl_Start.php