Paddlers hope to make it a sensational World Championship Sunday
With the last day of the ICF Canoe Sprint World Championships approaching on Sunday a pair of defending champs are hoping to get Canada on the medals table.
Kayaker Mark de Jonge, who won last year in the K1 200m, will be out to repeat in that event on Sunday morning in what may be Canada’s first medal in Milan. The Canadian won the first semifinal heat on Saturday in 34.631 seconds to register the fastest time into Sunday’s final, where a top six finish from de Jonge will also earn Canada an Olympic quota spot for Rio 2016 in the event.
Mark de Jonge during heats action at the Pan Am Games on July 12, 2015.
In women’s canoe, Laurence Vincent Lapointe is more than a second faster than her next closest competitor after the semifinals, winning the second semifinal heat comfortably ahead of Sunday. Vincent Lapointe is undoubtedly the best in the world in women’s canoe, which isn’t in the Olympics and won’t be at Rio 2016. However, behind the Canadian there is real competition brewing for the remaining medals, showing a wider field of participants and that may help women’s canoe to the Tokyo 2020 calendar.
RELATED: Vincent Lapointe makes canoe history at Pan Am Games
Laurence Vincent Lapointe paddles to the first-ever Pan Am Games women’s canoe gold medal on July 14, 2015.
Gold medals won by de Jonge and Vincent Lapointe a year ago in Moscow were the only Canadian podiums at the World Championships in 2014. On Sunday, Canada could will have a shot at four medals in Italy with Ben Russell and Gabriel Beauchesne-Sevigny (Men’s C2 1000m) and Genevieve Orton with Una Lounder (Women’s K2 200m) also in their respective final races.
