If we hear that one of our quartets came in second place and the other in seventh place, based on the results of the past years, we jump right in. Surely the women won the silver medal, and the men finished in the beaten field this time too. But no, quite the opposite happened.
The boat of Dóra Alida Gazsó, Tamara Csipes, Eszter Rendessy and Dóra Hadvina repeated the huge mistake made in the preliminary race and intermediate sprint in the final as well. In retrospect, he was unable to change the pace in any meaningful way, a disappointing seventh place at best. We even managed to beat sixth place last year, seventh place being a historic low. This performance is also disappointing, because with one difference – Erika Miedevitsky was in the boat instead of Eszter Rendessy – this unit was still the world champion in 2019.
There is no doubt that Danuta Kozak is urgently needed to return to the battle line next year, and without her the women’s kayak discipline would be very weak.
Men’s 4-person kayak: Work done
The current men’s kayak quartet began to take shape in 2019, and Pence Nadas, Istvan Koli and Sandor Tutka were already on board – Balaz Perkas was the fourth person – and the unit finished fifth at the World Championships in Szeged that year. The result seemed encouraging, but no progress had been made for years. At the Tokyo Olympics, the quartet of Cornel Becky, Nadas, Colos Seismadia and Totka finished eighth, and at last year’s World Championships (Nadas, István Koli, Adam Varga, Sesmadia) didn’t even make it to the finals. A sixth place this year at the European Games in Krakow gave reason for moderate confidence, but with another change, it seems the right order has been found.
Bencé Nadas still has an important job ahead of him, as he will start with Balint Kopac also as the reigning Ka500 champion. Of course, the quad was the most important, there are four stakes out of six, and it would be surprising if there weren’t six – Adam, for example Varga.
In the first final on Friday, Balint Kopac won gold in the K-1500m, after which he confirmed that he would also be able to perform well in the doubles.
I looked around for the last 20 metres, and then I thought that would be enough. In the end, I was a little nervous, but that’s normal in such a difficult field, I’m glad I managed to win. And the Olympic champion par excellence said: It will not be a problem to be in good shape tomorrow, as well as the doubles.
The duo of Blanca Case and Ana Luc, who started out as defending champions in the K-2 200, initially thought they had finished fourth, but it was only in the mixed zone that it became clear that they could stand on the podium once again alongside the victorious Poles and Germans. Dóra Horányi and Takács Kincső finished sixth in the C-2200m, Daniel Figgis finished eighth in the C-1500, and David Kuczkas finished ninth in the single scull final. Virág Balla won the B-final in the C-1,200 race, so she finished 10th overall, which hurts because the latter is an Olympic number, so she failed to get a share here.
Part of Friday’s story is that during the Paralympic Finals, Pal Peter Case, the national defender, defended his title in the KL1 200m – for the third time in a row – and thus secured the country’s share of the Paralympic Games next year, where he is also the defending champion. Another Hungarian, Robert Soba, finished fourth in the final.
Cover photo: The honor of the first rower, Nadas, to be the first to celebrate (Photo: MTI/Tamás Kovács)
