International Canoe Federation

The Hungarian women continue their ownership of the podium as Natasa Janic and Katalin Kovacs took the gold and bronze medals respectively. Italy's Josefa Idem took silver in another show of her impressive tenacity. She looked strong coming in just half a second behind Janic and over a second in front of Kovacs.

Later Janic told reporters it was the “perfect race. I have been concentrating on the 500m so my confidence is boosted. I would like to thank my coach and every member of the team. I have the 200m final this afternoon though so I cannot loosen up.” Kovacs continued, “during the race I didn't think I was going to make it to the podium and at the 250m mark I knew I need to push harder. Finally I'm very happy to have made it to the top three.”

Next up was the Women's K2 500m final. The Hungarian pair Gabriella Szabo and Danuta Kozak delighted their crowd taking gold, albeit just by the skin of their teeth. The Poles, Ewelina Wojnarowska and Marta Walcyzkiewicz won the silver while Yvonne Schuring and Viktoria Scwarz won the first medal for Austria.

It looked to be the Hungarian's day but for Attila Vajda's off-form performance in the Men's C1 500m. A close race, he and reigning C1 World Cup series winner, Vadim Menkov (UZB) were pushed off the podium by Belarussian, Dzianis Harazha, Mark Oldershaw (CAN) and Li Qiang (CHN). This was the first podium of the day without a Hungarian presence but that did not make a difference to the crowd's applause. Just like Mark Oldershaw said of Szeged; “They cheer for everyone, whether they are Hungarian or not so it really gets the blood going.”

Winning yesterday's K1 5000m did not keep Adam van Koeverden off peak as he pounded his way to gold in today's K1 500m final. He won convincingly with a time of 1.41.722. Sweden's Anders Gustafsson made his first podium appearance of the weekend as he followed Adam in second place with a time of 1.42.460. But the biggest surprise (and the most pleasant for these Szeged spectators) was the performance of the young Hungarian, Tamas Szalai. Sneaking up in Lane 1, Tamas had the crowd going nuts as he over took from Ken Wallace (AUS) he came in so close he was nearly in for the silver but he took bronze finishing with a time of 1.42.724.

Moving onto the doubles, the Men's C2 500m final was another no show for Hungary. Instead, Belarus took gold and bronze with the Poles in between to take home the silver medal. Second and third place were way too close to call. The photo finish saw the Hungarians just three hundredths of a second behind the Belarus boys. The last final of the morning was the Men's K2 500m. In this the Portuguese team were back to show the world what great form they are on. They were just pipped to first place by the Hungarians Gabor Kucsera and Zoltan Kammerer by one tenth of a second. The Czech Republic saw their first medal with their boys, Ondra Horsky and Jan Sterba who took the bronze. Talking to the ICF the pair said, “we started racing together last year so this is our second year and we also race the K4 together... the first time you sit in a boat you must feel if you will win or not as it will not come through training... you must fit together from the very first time... and for us it just works.”

This afternoon will be a spectacle of 200m racing where we will see whether Jo Bridgen-Jones (AUS), Shinobu Kitamoto (JAP) or Henriette Engel Hansen (DEN) can disturb the seemingly invincible Janic. We'll also be looking at how the British 200m boats do with Ed McKeaver in the Men's K1 final and Jonathan Schofield and Liam Heath in the Men's K2 final. Also in the 200m is C1 1000m silver medallist, Matheiu Goubel. It will be interesting to see how he shifts into the shorter distance.

The 200m finals begin with the C Final of the Men's K1 at 15.20 CEST.