Kayaker de Jonge wins second straight ICF sprint world title

August 23, 2015

Canada’s Mark de Jonge continued to set the pace at ICF Canoe Sprint World Championships, where the kayaker claimed his second straight title on Sunday.

A first time World Champion last year in Moscow, de Jonge – an Olympic bronze medallist – repeated the feat in Milan, taking the K1 200m race in 34.802 seconds, edging out Maxime Beaumont of France by 0.191s for gold. Petter Menning of Sweden won the bronze.

Mark de Jonge at the 2015 ICF Canoe Sprint World Championships (Photo: Balint Vekassy / CKC).

According to the International Canoe Federation, de Jonge is the first male winner to take world titles in consecutive years since Germany’s Ronald Gauhe, who did it in three straight years in the same event.

One of, if not the biggest, surprise of Sunday came in the women’s C1 200m, where three-time World Champion in that event, Laurence Vincent Lapointe of Canada, was kept off the podium in fourth place. Vincent Lapointe was more than a second faster than the field in the semifinals on Saturday, however, she was 0.637s behind the winner from Bulgaria, Staniliya Stamenova. Kincso Takacs (Hungary) and Kamila Bobr (Belarus) also managed to sneak in ahead of Vincent Lapointe.

Mark de Jonge waves to the crowd in Welland after winning Pan Am Games kayak gold on July 14, 2015.

The win by de Jonge also secures an Olympic spot for Canada in the K1 200m. Earlier this summer de Jonge won gold at the Toronto 2015 Pan American Games.

Canada won a second medal on Sunday through Emilie Fournel in the non-Olympic K1 women’s 5000m race. Fournel crossed in 22 minutes and 43.59 seconds behind Maryna Litvinchuk (22:36.06) of Belarus and Lani Belcher of Great Britain (22:40.02).