Day 9 Preview: First Medals Up For Grabs In Canoe Sprint And Paracanoe
The European Championships Munich 2022 are entering weekend mode, but there is no slowing down the sporting action. On the contrary: The medal race is getting underway in canoe sprint and paracanoe, in Olympiastadion the track and field stars are overcoming actual and mental hurdles on their way to gold, and right next door it's getting fast and furious in the men's mountain bike race. Follow the whole day live in our blog.
© David Hecker/Munich 2022
MEDALS ON THE LINE
The first European champions will be crowned in canoe sprint on Friday, with medals up for grabs in canoe, kayak and paracanoe at the Olympic Regatta Centre.
The day could potentially be a good one for Great Britain. At the world championships just under two weeks ago, the nation picked up gold medals in three of the paracanoe events to be contested on Friday – the men’s and women’s VL3 single 200m, and the women’s VL2 single 200m.
In Friday’s men’s VL3 200m heats, Jack Eyers (GBR) set a new European best time of 48.836 seconds, exactly half a second quicker than the old record set by compatriot Jonathan Young (GBR) five years ago.
Eyers said coming into the European championships after defending his world title was “exciting, but also a little bit nerve-wracking”.
“It was only two weeks ago, so to try and repeat those results is something I would love to do, but it certainly adds a bit of pressure to this event,” he added.
Read the full preview here.
JACK OF ALL TRADES
Whether it’s cyclo-cross, road cycling or mountain bike, when Tom Pidcock (GBR) is at the start of a bike race, he’s one of the favourites to win. Coming off a successful Tour de France, the Olympic mountain bike champion has set his sights on the European title at Munich’s Olympiapark.
The 4.27km cross-country course is built at the heart of Olympiapark, making use of the natural terrain for an altitude difference of 157m. In front of the start/finish area is a temporary bridge over Olympiasee (Olympic Lake).
Pidcock is a master of all trades when it comes to the bike. The 23-year-old Briton seized Olympic mountain bike gold in Tokyo last year and took the world cyclo-cross title last January. In this year’s Tour de France Pidcock won the prestigious stage to Alpe d’Huez to prove his versatility once more.
Find out who his main competitors are in our full preview.
© Alexander Hassenstein/Munich 2022
TIME FOR REDEMPTION
Karsten Warholm (NOR) rarely needs extra motivation when he competes on the world stage. But the self-styled ‘Viking’ of Norwegian athletics has even more reason than normal to produce a winning performance when he races for Munich 2022 400m hurdles gold at Olympiastadion on Friday, one of eight medal events on day five of athletics.
2022 hasn’t been kind to the 26-year-old as an early season hamstring injury hampered his preparations for this year’s world championships in Eugene where he could only finish seventh, so a second European title would be redemption of sorts.
50 years ago Olympiastadion witnessed one of the great 400m hurdles performances when John Akii-Bua shocked the world by winning gold for Uganda at the 1972 Olympics, a performance Warholm has watched many times on YouTube.
“It was a special race,” he said. “There is an amazing documentary. Coming here and seeing the stadium, it’s a very special venue for me. I’m really looking forward to running here.”
Read the full athletics preview here.
SIXTEEN BECOME FOUR
With the doubles done and dusted, the table tennis tournament of the European Championships Munich 2022 is now all about the two singles competitions.
On Friday, the 16 women’s players remaining after Thursday’s round of 32 will become four, with the players preceding into the semifinals securing a medal.
Bernadette Szőcs (ROU) and Sofia Polcanova (AUT), who won the women’s doubles gold medal on Thursday, now look to make it as far as possible in the singles tournament, knowing that they can face each other in the quarterfinal.
”No matter if she wins or if I win, we will still remain friends. This is the life; who is better wins. And who wins, I want this person to win the gold medal,” Szőcs said.
German hopefuls Timo Boll and Sabine Winter are also in action, looking to get one step closer to Sunday’s finals.
Check out the full preview here.
© Thomas Niedermüller / Munich 2022
EIGHT BECOME TWO
We will know the identity of the teams that will play in the CEV EuroBeachVolley final on Saturday, with the women’s semifinals due to close play on Friday in the European Championships Munich 2022.
The men’s draw moves on to the round of 16 with the quarterfinalists due to be decided by the end of the day.
Read up on the highlights of the day here.