The canoe duo with Peter Kretschmer and Tim Hecker ensured a golden finish at the Canoe World Championships on Sunday.
The newly formed duo from Leipzig and Berlin put on a furious final over the 500 meters and won the world title with a good boat length lead ahead of China and Spain. “Indescribable, just awesome,” said Hecker, the experienced batsman Kretschmer was surprised by his own performance: “I only realized it on the finish line, before that I didn’t dare to look to the side.”
In the kayak doubles there was bronze for Jule Hake and Paulina Paszek on their parade distance over 500 meters, after they had previously won silver on the short non-Olympic sprint distance. The kayak duo with Felix Frank and Martin Hiller, who won the title over twice the distance last year, came sixth over the Olympic 500 meters and at least secured the quota place for Paris.
With the strong finish on Sunday in the canoe pair, the German Canoe Association recorded a promising result with 17 out of 18 possible Olympic quota places for Paris 2024. Especially after the golden start of the kayak foursome with Max Rendschmidt, Max Lemke, Jacob Schopf and Tom Liebscher-Lucz, head national coach Arndt Hanisch sees his team “100 percent on target, even if the beginning of the season was difficult with many injuries and Suffer”.