The kayaker won the individual final of the 500 meters at the European Games in Cracow by an astonishing margin. Alida Dóra Gazsó came second in the women's 500-meter race, while Ágnes Kiss won a bronze medal in the canoe 500-meter race. Adolf Balázs finished in seventh place among the men.
While the display of the Krakow media center warned of a heat alarm, the rain poured down on the kayak-canoe track as if it had been poured from a vat. As it turned out, the weather warning system had not been updated since Thursday, and on Saturday the cold front arrived at the central location of the European Games, so the dress code in the stands was no longer a T-shirt and shorts, but a raincoat.
Half an hour before the start, the on-site announcer asked the spectators to clap loudly for the weather to change - they did, but they could not get the celestials to see better.
Our pulse did not rise in the first half of the program, because there was no Hungarian interest in the B finals, all our units could fight for a medal. Dóra Alida Gazsó was the best in Saturday's only Olympic event, the women's K-1,500 meters, according to her partner Tamara Csipes, she has a good chance. However, the rivals were no small players either, the field included, for example, the Rio silver and Tokyo bronze medalist Emma Jörgensen of Denmark, who led by more than half a boat's length at 250 meters. Gazzó had his reserve left, he worked on his disadvantage, and although Jörgensen had more power at the end, our two-time world champion can be proud not only of his second place, but also of his excellently constructed track.
And then what should Ádám Varga feel?
Our Olympic silver medalist kayaker in K–1 1,000 meters won the first European championship title among adults in his career after winning the start-to-finish race in 500 meters. Varga was already leading the Portuguese Fernando Pimenta by a boat length at half the distance, and in the end the only question was how much he would win the final - of course he felt differently, and even though he started to get tired, he gave him one more paddle in the last hundred meters.
Last year, Jacob Schopf beat him by two tenths of a second over this distance, this time the German was not in the field, and no one else could challenge Varga, about whom national team captain Csaba Hüttner only said:
“This guy is brutal”.
Featured image: The winner Ádám Varga at the announcement of the results of the men's kayak 500-meter final at the European Championships taking place as part of the European Games in Krakow on the Kryspinow track on June 24, 2023. MTI / Zsolt Czeglédi
