When the racing concluded today at World Rafting Championships 2022 the local Master’s Men’s team from Bosnia and Herzegovina were proudly displaying the gold medals they won in Sprint, and the bronze in Head-to-Head (H2H).
The victorious crew consisted of: Igor Kuzmanović, Dragan Bjelić, Nebojša Tadić, Andrej Zamolo and Goran Pašić as a reserve.
In the Sprint they came first across the finish line in 73.14 seconds and surpassed the Brazilian national team, which was only 0.78 seconds behind. The Czech Republic finished third with a time of 74.23 seconds. In the H2H they fought off a determined Costa Rica in the B-final to claim Gold with Brazil winning over Czech in the A-Final.
“This rarely happens. We have participated in a lot of World Championships and proved our quality at them, but we never won a medal. It was about time for this to happen, and at that on our home turf as well” said Kuzmanović. (Interview)
In Sprint the USA won gold in the Women’s Open and Under 19 category. Open Women’s team member Meghan Robertson said that this win was a huge success for them. They completed the very demanding white water track in 79.08 seconds with Japan and Australia taking silver and bronze. “It was great, we are so excited! We had a very good race! We entered exactly the path we wanted and which we trained many times. We did not expect gold and we are overjoyed” said Robertson. (Interview with USA OW, Croatia OM, and Argentina OM)
Meghan praised the organisers of the World Championship, Rafting Club Kanjon. “The opening ceremony was magnificent! The organisers made a lot of effort and have done a great job!. This is the best ceremony I have been to so far” Robertson added.
A member of the Croatian Men’s Open team who won a silver medal in the Sprint category., Tomislav Hohnjec, is very pleased with his teams performance. and the silver medal his team won. The Croatians crossed the track in 72.24 seconds, only 1.20 seconds behind Brazil, and ahead of the Argentinian team which came third with a timing of 72.61 seconds.
“This is our first official race after three years, and that was in Banja Luka at the European Championship. After that, we were prevented by the coronavirus, but now we have managed to win a medal. We navigated the river well, but the Brazilians were too strong for us. We have already achieved great success, maybe there will be another medal” said Hohnjec.
A member of the Argentine team, Sebastian, said “Very difficult race, with a lot of stress and adrenaline. There were a lot of good teams, and we fulfilled the plan by winning a medal. I am grateful to all my colleagues from the team and they all made a huge effort before we came here and I hope that we will continue at the same pace for the rest of the competition”.
Next is the Head-to-Head discipline, always very exciting to follow.
