Final runs of K1 women with ten kaykers in the startlist was full of penalizations for touching the gates. The only to perform the clear ride was Veronika Vojtkova nevertheless her ride was slow and did not ensure victory but lead to fourth place only. Gate number 15 was cursed from the semifinals and caused troubles in the finals as well.
First clear run of the semifinals presented Chinese tandem Hongmin Yu and Jin Chen. Starting right after, Pierre Picco and Hugo Biso from France beated their time by 1,7s. First of three Czech doubles Tomas Koplik and Jakub Vrzan set the new leading time 112,93 and it was not beated till the end.
Sunday competition day of K1W and C2M started with semifinals rounds. First to taste the course were women kayakers and the best ten from the semifinals qualified to the finals.
The new discipline in this year Canoe World Cup schedule is Kayak Cross. For the first time it was presented in the Czech Republic with an ample participation of the Czech kayakers.
First four places of the K1M were dominated by Czech kayakers. Ondrej Tunka tasted the final run as the first one from the Czech group of four.
Czech paddler Katerina Hoskova looked like the possible winner when she kept the first place even with two second penalization. But last to start was Jessica Fox , Australian star of canoe slalom.
Category C1M started the final runs of Saturday program. Ryan Westley started as the first one in the finals from the tenth place in the semifinals and kept the leading position through most of the competition.
Ten finalists in each category emerged from Saturday`s morning semifinals which started at 9 am in no wind conditions and warm weather. Benjamin Savsek was the only one among C1M paddlers to squeeze the time under 100s. That happened even with two second penalization from the upstream gate number 16. The rest of the finalists were lined up between 100 and 104 seconds.
Afternoon program in Prague continued with qualifications of women kayak. Among the fifty-three racers there were four Czech paddlers: Veronika Vojtová, Karolína Galušková, Katerina Kudějová and Stepanka Hilgertova. They made it succesfully to the semifinals straight from the first run. The fastest boat belonged to a French athlete Marie-Zelia Lafonte with the time of 98.19, second place went to Jessica Fox of Australia and the third place went to home star Katerina Kudějová.
Friday qualifications were started by canoeists including three home representatives Tomas Rak, Vitezslav Gebas and Lukas Rohan. The race dominated the Swiss paddler Thomas Koechlin in time of 92.48s, silver medal holder from Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro Matej Beňuš finished second as he gained a two-second penalty, and third place went to Czech Tomas Rak.
Official program of the 2016 ICF Canoe Slalom World Cup started with the canoeists on Friday 2 September. You will find the race information on these links.