Canoe: WM: Brendel defends title, Liebscher with surprise

Canoeing king Sebastian Brendel enjoyed the German national anthem in the heavy downpour, while surprise world champion Tom Liebscher shone across both ears just a few metres away: with two gold medals in just seven minutes, seasoned Brendel and a newcomer Liebscher gave DKV a dream start into the world championship in Czech Racice.

“It doesn’t get much better than that.That was a great start,”said DKV sports director Jens Kahl to the SID after three medals in the six Olympic boats.There was silver for the London Olympic champions Franziska Weber and Tina Dietze in the two-man kayak competition:”The fact that we have set ourselves little plans is going pretty well,”said association president Thomas Konietzko.

Defending champion Brendel (Potsdam) prevailed on his parade course in a strong final spurt ahead of his Czech permanent rival Martin Fuksa and won the World Championship title for the third time in a row “This is a great feeling, even though I am completely finished.I wasn’t sure beforehand, the running-in was rather modest”, said Brendel:”In the end it was the duel with Fuksa again.Glad I could beat him again.I knew I had a great finish.”

In the almost 80 years of World Cup history, a gold hat-trick in the Canadier-Einer had previously only been played by Andreas Dittmer (2001 to 2005) from Neubrandenburg and the Latvian legend Ivan Klementiev (1989 to 1994).Overall, it was the sixth World Championship title for Brendel, who also won Olympic gold in 2012 and 2016.

The gold medal was unexpectedly awarded by Liebscher, who was supported by about 100 fans near his home town of Dresden.Dresden’s Lord Mayor Dirk Hilbert has already announced his intention for Sunday:”No one could have foreseen that.I didn’t have a single medal before the race.I can’t believe it’s going so well.In the end, the great support of my fans helped me a lot,”said Liebscher, who also passed the long time leading opponents in a strong final spurt.

For the 24-year-old, it was his first one-start at a World Championship, and after the race, he fell in love with head coach Arndt Hanisch,”This is a big surprise.He took the book into his hands, we hadn’t dreamed of that,”Hanisch said.

Weber/Dietze had to admit defeat on the 500 m distance only to the New Zealanders Lisa Carrington and Caitlin Ryan.Marcus Groß and Max Hoff (Berlin/Essen) were disappointed in the kayak two over 1000 m.The favourite four-man Olympic gold medallists were only fifth.Groß and his former partner Max Rendschmidt won gold at both the 2016 Olympics and the 2013 and 2015 World Championships.

Sabrina Hering (Hanover) paddled past a medal.The Olympic runner-up in the foursome, who had been incapacitated for a long time with Pfeiffer’s glandular fever, finished fourth in the 500-metre long one.The young Potsdam duo Ophelia Preller (18) and Annika Loske (19) took a respectable seventh place in the 500 m Olympic Canadier two in the future.

On Sunday, the six other Olympic disciplines in Racice will be decided.As a gold candidate, the men’s kayak fourth in particular will then start the race.