Cătălin Chirilă and his great rival, Martin Fuksa, Olympic and World Champion, had a new passionate duel, this time at the European Kaiac-Canoe championships (Czech Republic). The Romanian imposed on the photofiniș and won the continental title.
Cătălin Chirilă, gold medal for Romania at the Kaiac-Canoe Europeans. Photo EPA EFE
The 27-year-old athlete has defended his European title in the Canoe-1 sample in a distance of 1,000 meters. In the first part of the race, Martin Fuksa took over the lead, but Cătălin Chirilă returned strongly and distanced to a boat from his follower. Victoria seemed light, but the representative of the organizing country recovered extraordinarily and reached the Romanian.
Third European gold medal for Cătălin Chirilă
Our athlete resisted heroically, the separation being made after the race officials watched the resumptions of the end for several minutes. Cătălin Chirilă was a winner, with 3 minutes, 46 seconds and 781 thousands, half a second in front of Fuksa. On the third place was the Moldovan Seghei Tarnovschi (3: 49,128)
Cătălin Chirilă thus became a European champion again, as he had done in 2022 and last year. The Tulcea athlete also has a silver medal at C1-500 in 2023 and two bronze at C1-1000 m, in 2021, and at C1-500 m, in 2022. He will try to enrich his record tomorrow, when he will start in the 500 m race (from 10.06).
