SZEGED, Hungary – Laurence Vincent-Lapointe of Trois-Rivieres, Que., and Mallorie Nicholson of Oakville, Ont., took gold Saturday in the C-2 500-metre final at the world canoe and kayak championships.
The Canadian duo successfully defended their title, finishing in a time of 2:01.028 to take first in the non-Olympic event.
Russia’s Anastasia Ganina and Natalia Marasanova took silver in 2:03.440, while Hungary’s Kincso Takacs and Gyongyver Baravics were third in 2:08.534.
It was Canada’s second gold at the world championships after Adam van Koeverden’s victory in the men’s K-1 1,000 on Friday.
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“It is definitely the most important and memorable race of my career,” Nicholson said.
Vincent-Lapointe and Nicholson had never raced in front of such large and noisy crowd.
“We’re always communicating to each other in the boat but this time it was impossible,” Vincent-Lapointe said. “I couldn’t hear myself think, the crowd was so into the race, it was really intimidating. Definitely something I never experienced before.”
Meanwhile, Nicole Reinhardt claimed a surprise win in the women’s K-1 500.
The German clocked in at 1:47.066 to take the gold medal ahead of European champion Danuta Kozak of Hungary and the hot favourite, Olympic and world champion Inna Osypenko-Radomska of the Ukraine.
It was a seventh world title for Reinhardt, who was also a member of the winning K-4 team at the 2008 Olympics.
The men’s K-1 500 race was won by Marek Twardowski of Poland, ahead of Pavel Miadzvedzeu of Belarus and Yury Postrygay of Russia.
Dzianis Harazha of Belarus missed out on defending his title in the men’s C-1 500 after finishing less than two tenths of a second behind Vladimir Fedosenko of Russia.
Note to readers: This is a corrected story. A previous version stated the race won by Vincent-Lapointe and Nicholson was the C-1 500 metres.
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