Maialen Chourraut, a silver medalist in K1 at the recent Tokyo Games, was eighth in the last round of the Canoeing World Cup Slalom that takes place in the channel of Pau (France), which finishes fourth in the general.
The Basque paddler, who had scored the second best time in the semifinal, only surpassed by the Australian Jessica Fox (by 1.09 seconds), without any failure, could not endorse this magnificent performance on the final descent. Chourraut, bronze in London 2012 and Olympic champion in Rio 2016, made more mistakes than usual (three knocks on gates 4, 16 and 22) in the final and had to settle for eighth position, with a time of 115.56, to 8.82 of Fox, the undisputed queen of the women’s slalom.
The Australian was also the fastest in the final, who won with a time of 106.74, after a two-second penalty, and led the Czech Katerina Minarik by 0.72 and the Slovenian Ursa Kragelj by 1.54. Fox, bronze in Tokyo in this modality, thus ends up again champion of the K1 World Cup while tomorrow he aspires to gold in C1 as well, with 290 points. New Zealander Luuka Jones is second with 206, Slovenian Eva Tercelj third with 201 and Chourraut fourth along with German Elena Apel with 190.
In male K1, the Segovian David Llorente, tenth in Tokyo, he missed the final after finishing fifteenth in the semi-final, less than a second from the pass. Llorente, from RÃo Eresma, stopped the clock at 100.56 after knocking on door 19, and the classification was at 99.61 scored by Frenchman Mathieu Biazizzo. Nor could they get into the final Joan Crespo, twenty-seventh with 103.19, and Pau Echániz, thirty-second with 103.99.