Hamish Lovemore once again led the charge for South Africa as he collected a bronze medal and reached a final in the season-opening ICF Canoe Sprint World Cup regatta in Szeged, Hungary over the weekend.
Header Image: Hamish Lovemore (right) on the podium for the 5 000m alongside Portugal’s Fernando Pimenta (centre) and Denmark’s Mads Pedersen. (ICF /Gameplan Media)
Lovemore led the six-person team’s results with a third place in the 5 000m event that wrapped up competition on Sunday afternoon, after he had earlier reached the final in the Olympic-distance 1 000m K1 race on Saturday.
The Szeged regatta was the first World Cup to count towards the new ranking system for LA28 qualification, which means Lovemore picked up valuable points in his quest to be return to the Olympic stage in Los Angeles in 2028.
The big winner in the men’s races was 36-year-old Fernando Pimenta, who won the Olympic distance 1 000m event before outsprinting Denmark superstar Mads Pedersen at the finish of the 5 000m event after the pair had broken away from Lovemore earlier in the six-lap race.
Lovemore finished ninth in the 1 000m.
Cape Town’s Uli Hart finished 11th in the 5 000m event while Esti Olivier ended eighth in the women’s 200m B Final. The only other South African paddler to progress through heats and semi-finals into a final was Nicholas Weeks, who finished seventh in the 200m men’s C Final. Hart and Helen Jansen Van Vuuren were eliminated in the semi-finals of the men’s and women’s 1 000m respectively, while Jansen van Vuuren ended 24th in the women’s 5 000m race.
The next World Cup takes place in Brandenburg in Germany from Thursday to Sunday with Lovemore, Olivier, Weeks, Jansen van Vuuren, and Chrisjan Coetzee all taking part once again.
Full SA Paddler Results
K1 Men 5 000m: Hamish Lovemore – Final 3rd
Uli Hart – Final 11th
K1 Men 1 000m: Lovemore – Final 9th
Hart – Semi-final 9th
K1 Women 200m: Esti Olivier – B Final 8th
K1 Men 200m: Nicholas Weeks – C Final 7th
Chrisjan Coetzee – Heats 7th
K1 Women 5000m: Helen Jansen Van Vuuren – Final 24th
K1 Women 1 000m: Jansen van Vuuren – Semi-final 9th
K1 Women 500m: Olivier – Heats 8th
K1 Men 500m: Weeks – Heats 7th
Coetzee – Heats 7th
