This weekend is stacked with two European paddling championships: Marathon Canoe Racing in Ponte de Lima Portugal, and Wildwater Canoe Racing in Mazzana Italy. So there’s a lot to talk about.

The level of competition at the European marathon champs will rival that of the upcoming World Games later this year, and will feature some of the biggest names and rivalries in the sport. Several of the podium athletes from the recent sprint world cups will be racing including Jon Vold and Joakim Lindberg. The Portuguese legend Fernando Pimenta, on home turf, will race in K2 with one of his greatest partners and rivals Jose Ramalho, as well as in the K1 for only the short course race.

In women’s K1, are we seeing the era of Hungarian Vanda Kiszli being turned into the era of Swede Melina Andersson? At last year’s marathon world championships, the two kayakers broke away from a very competitive pack to fight each other for the win. Kiszli had the better position with Andersson pushed into the bank, but in the last minute of the race Andersson found new strength to push past Kiszli for a clear win. Andersson has been on a streak with short course wins, but whether she’ll be able to beat out Kiszli in the long course again will be one of the biggest questions of the weekend.

At Lake Rocks, Dutchman Donato Freens extended his impressive spring season to win both the long distance and technical races. Boothy wasn’t able to challenge him in long distance the way he did in 2024, but it was the dark horse Normen Weber from Germany who stuck with Donato almost until the end when Donato put on the afterburners and left Weber behind. 16 year old Benyam Bossack was another stand-out of the weekend, as the young paddler from Germany and the Netherlands managed to stay with the chase pack during the long distance race and earn prize money with his 3rd place finish in the senior men’s technical race.

The Queen of Long Distance Esperanza Barreras came in as the favourite and was looking to retain her title from 2024, but faced impressively fierce competition from Csillag Kocsis. The 18 year old Hungarian is coming off a nasty bout of pneumonia that kept her away from the biggest races in Spain, and seems to have made a shockingly smooth transition from junior to senior racing where she is already challenging the best in the world. Csillag stuck with Espe stroke for stroke throughout the entire long distance race until the very end, where she tried to make a move only for Espe to make a better move and take the win. In the technical race the next day though, Csillag managed to take the win where Espe came second. Keep your eye on Csillag later this year as she could be a seriously disruptive force in the senior women’s racing!

In Mazzana, the athletes are watching water levels closely since they started rising over the last couple of days to reach monstrous heights. Keep your eye on GB athlete Kerry Christie, who’s already agreed to talk to Paddlecast after her racing this weekend…

01:31 Race preview: European Marathon Canoe Racing Championships including men’s and women’s racing, K1s and K2s, canoes, and paracanoe

20:07 Race recap: Lake Rocks SUP Festival by Paddelstadt stand up paddleboard racing

36:12 Race preview: 2025 ECA Wildwater Canoeing European Championships

41:19 Kurt Adams Roozentals ‘I’m being forced to choose between Olympics and OnlyFans’

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Links

Lake Rocks by the Numbers: https://standupmagazin.com/en/2025/06/the-lake-rocks-by-the-numbers/ 

Kurt Adams Roozentals “'I'm being forced to choose between Olympics and OnlyFans'” on BBC Sport https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rowing/articles/c0715154kmeo