A. Seja completed the 200 m distance in 35.00 seconds. The Lithuanian was only 0.02 seconds away from the podium.
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“In the final, I gave everything I could. I had the right psychological mindset, managed to avoid mistakes, fought until the finish, and I have no complaints about myself. It’s a pity, but it wasn’t enough to win a medal,” said A. Seja.
The world champion was Italian Andrea Di Liberto, who crossed the finish line in 34.15 seconds. Silver went to Serbian Marko Dragosavljević (34.72 seconds), and bronze was claimed by Spaniard Carlos Arevalo (34.98 seconds). A total of 38 kayakers started in this event, where the results also count towards the Olympic ranking.
“Canoe and kayak paddling is advancing rapidly worldwide, and it is becoming increasingly difficult for us to compete with countries where sport receives much greater state support. To win a world championship, you have to do something more and better than the rest of the world. Athletes from leading countries have huge teams with specialists in various fields – not only coaches but also psychology, biomechanics, analysis, and others. We don’t have such conditions in Lithuania, so the place achieved reflects the real situation,” said A. Seja, the 2023 world champion in this event.
Henrikas Žustautas and Vadimas Korobovas, who reached the final, also added to the Olympic ranking points tally at the World Championships. In the C2 500 m final, the Lithuanians completed the distance in 1 min 40.95 sec and took 7th place. They were 0.92 seconds away from the podium.
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The world champions in this event were Russians competing under a neutral status (1 min 39.23 sec), silver went to Brazilians (1 min 39.81 sec), and bronze to Hungarians (1 min 40.03 sec). Next in line were Spaniards, Italians, and Romanians. The Lithuanians finished ahead of the Poles and Belarusians competing under a neutral status. A total of 27 doubles started in this event.
“Good, but we could have done better. We wanted to beat the Romanians because they are the main competitors in the fight for an Olympic Games spot. We wanted to get into the top six also to repeat the result we achieved at last year’s World Championships. We missed a very good result by just one tenth of a second,” said H. Žustautas.
“Mixed feelings. At the finish, looking from the side, it was clear that we finished together with everyone else. We wanted to be a couple of places higher, but then you think that seventh place is still good. We gave our all in the final. At the finish, our heads were really spinning, and it felt like they were about to explode. So it’s encouraging that we finished in such a large group in the final and are competitive,” said V. Korobovas.
Simonas Maldonis and Andrejus Olijnikas, who started in the C final of the C2 500 m event, completed the distance in 1 min 33.21 sec and took 3rd place. In the final World Championship ranking, S. Maldonis and A. Olijnikas took 21st place out of 40 doubles.
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