In the kayak final, Prskavec takes the victory, Prindiš second. Jessica Fox crowned among women

In the early evening of Friday (9 June), the K1 men and women finals ended the competition day in Prague - Troja. Among the men, all Czech boats made it to the final, and in the end the home team took the top two places. Jiří Prskavec defeated the rest of the starting field in a breath-taking final, Vít Přindiš won the silver, and the bronze goes to Italy thanks to Giovanni De Gennaro. Australian Jessica Fox rules in the women´s category, second is Ricarda Funk from Germany and third place goes to Mallory Franklin of Great Britain.

Women's win for Jessica Fox

In the women's final, two home competitors qualified from today´s semifinal. Amálie Hilgertová qualified to the final from the ninth place, and her return to the national team was more than successful. With one mistake, she still led halfway through the race, eventually finishing in fourth place. "The ride was not very good, I made some mistakes, but luckily I made up for it in the passages that I did extremely well. So I'm glad that at least some part of the ride was great.

But I didn't even expect that it would come out so high with such a time. I had the same time in the semi-finals, and that was eighth place. I'm a little sad about the fourth place, but if I take into account how I went, I can be satisfied," said the best Czech at the finish line.

The only competitor under 100 seconds was the last kayaker at the start, Australian star Jessica Fox. With a clean ride and a time of 98.95 s, she confidently took the gold. "I attacked the whole ride and tried to improve my ride from the semi-final. It was important to avoid touching. I think I was really quick in gates four and seven and had a very good finish,” said a happy winner Jessica Fox.

Dominance of Czech kayakers

In the men's K1 final, there were eight clean runs. The promising youngsters Jonny Dickinson from Great Britain, Titouan Castryck from France and the Czech representative Jakub Krejčí also tried to surprise the experienced competitors. The rookie in the Czech national team finished sixth a week ago in Augsburg, this time he is seventh. "There was a slight nervousness, but I was really looking forward to the race. Unfortunately the result is not what I imagined, but the final at home is amazing," said Jakub Krejčí, who is looking forward to the next races and hopes to participate in the final again.

The time of 90.55 seconds of home Vít Přindiš secured him a second place. "I lost some time between the gates 21 and 22, where the cylinder ate me up more, I think I left about half a second there, maybe even more. However, I felt very good while paddling. It went great, it was a beautiful ride that I enjoyed a lot. It was tight, Jíra showed a great performance, especially a great lower part of the course, and I think he deservedly won," praised his representative colleague Vít Přindiš, who won silver.

The only one who managed to lower Přindiš's time was the last competitor at the start, Jiří Prskavec. He won with a clean ride and a time of 89.67s. "I am very satisfied with my rides. Both the semi-final and the final ride seemed to be easy, I was riding beautifully. In the final, I left something a little at the beginning. Then I was able to pull it back and at the end I allowed myself to risk it even though I knew I was going a great ride. Of course, this is very gratifying when you finally handle it and you reach the finish line first. Vítek really made it terribly, terribly difficult for me, but of course I'm very happy that we didn't leave the victory in Troja to foreigners, but we are in first and second place," added the golden Jiří Prskavec, who dominated the qualification, semi-finals and finally the final in Troja.

Results K1 Women Final
Results K1 Men Final

Photo: Luděk and Štěpán Šipla