Campbell Walsh - Molmenti is European Champion again
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
Daniele Molmenti, the current World Champion, added the European title to his palmares for the 2nd time. He powered his way down the Seu channel, never looking in danger of making a mistake. Be sure to check out his new website and play paddle-guitar along to the tunes!
I was watching from the river bank after not making it through to the final. An excited start to my semi-final run saw me go too tight into the first upstream gate, stalling in order to stretch my head around the pole, touching it in the process. The judges decided I did not get my head around the pole, awarding a 50s penalty. I disagree, but if the penalty had instead been a 2s touch, the racing was too tight and I wouldn't have made it into the final anyway. So I placed 19th of the 20 starters.
With a fairly straight forward course design everyone was racing very close to the poles - this produced exciting racing, but also plenty of controversial penalty decisions! Most notably, Fabien Lefevre was fast enough to win the final but for a judged half head 50s penalty. Young Jiri Prskavec again showed his outstanding form, finishing on the podium in 3rd, with local Spaniard Samuel Hernanz in 2nd.
Interestingly, if anyone ever doubted how competitive a European Champs actually is, the top 11 kayaks from the ICF World Ranking list were all present and racing (and you have to look to 24th position in the rankings to find the first non-European).
Campbell Walsh
http://www.campbellwalsh.com/news.php?page=394
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