Anezka Paloudova: Four Golds at the 2026 Czech Nationals

Published

2026-08-04T15:42:38+00:00

Full competition results: Czech Canoe Sprint National Championships 2026

Canoe sprint rarely hands out perfect weekends, but Anežka Paloudová came within one race of one. At the Czech Canoe Sprint National Championships 2026 in Račice, the 27-year-old from Univerzitní sportovní klub Praha won the K1 500 m on Thursday, the K1 1000 m on Friday and both the K2 500 m and K4 500 m on Saturday — four gold medals in four days, and the largest individual haul of the entire senior championships.

Paloudová's Račice scoreboard: four golds in four days

Anežka Paloudová — results at the 2026 Czech nationals

The margins tell the story better than the medal count. In the K1 500 m she beat Barbora Sovová by 1.45 seconds — an eternity over the Olympic distance. On Friday she stretched the same rivalry over a kilometre and won by 2.34 seconds. Saturday brought the crews: with Zuzana Hanusová she took the K2 500 m by 0.86 seconds from Kateřina Zárubová and Štěpánka Sobíšková, then steered the Univerzitní sportovní klub Praha four — completed by Eliška Betlachová and Hanusová — to K4 gold by more than three seconds.

Only Sunday resisted. In the K1 200 m final she crossed fifth in 0:43.17, 0.61 seconds behind the dead-heat champions Sobíšková and Zárubová, who shared the title at 0:42.56. Over four days Paloudová entered five finals and left the water unbeaten in everything from 500 metres up — a domestic statement no other kayaker, man or woman, matched at these championships, as the full Račice results review shows.

From wildwater world titles to sprint lanes

Paloudová's dominance in Račice looks less surprising the further back you scroll. Born on 19 January 1999 in Český Krumlov, she was a world-class athlete before she ever raced a flatwater regatta — in wildwater canoeing, where she collected six world championship gold medals between 2016 and 2019. Then she changed sports almost entirely.

"When I started to do Canoe Sprint, it felt quite odd beginning a new sport. I didn't expect to be selected for the national team," she admitted in an interview for the International Canoe Federation. The selection came anyway, and the learning curve turned out to be steep in the right direction: by 2024 she was collecting World Cup silver medals in both the K1 500 m and the K1 1000 m.

The move from wildwater to sprint is one of the hardest lateral transfers in paddlesport. Wildwater rewards line-reading, boat control and long threshold efforts on moving water; sprint demolishes athletes over 200 lanes-and-lactate seconds. Paloudová rebuilt her stroke for flat water in her mid-twenties and still reached the sport's biggest stage within three seasons.

Paris, Samarkand and a boat shared with Dostál

The reward arrived in 2024. Paloudová qualified for the Paris Olympics in the K1 500 m at the European qualifier in Szeged — and became the first Czech female kayaker at the Games in 16 years. In Paris she won her quarter-final in 1:49.43, took fourth in her semi-final in 1:51.47 and finished 15th overall as her Olympic debut.

A few weeks later, at the world championships in Samarkand, she took a medal on the biggest senior stage: bronze in the mixed K2 500 m in 1:38.34 — paddling with Josef Dostál, the Paris 2024 Olympic K1 1000 m champion, six-time world champion in the K1 500 m and, privately, her fiancé. Their partnership started on the water: Dostál helped her with sprint technique when she switched disciplines, and the relationship grew from there. In Račice the couple combined for five national titles — his kilometre crown in 3:24.47 and her four golds.

She also raced the non-Olympic distances in Samarkand, placing sixth in the K1 5000 m, the kind of engine work that made Friday's Račice kilometre — 4:17.27, won wire to wire — look routine.

Season by season: the numbers behind the surge

Put her last three seasons side by side and the trajectory is unusually legible. In 2024 she collected World Cup silver in both the K1 500 m (1:50.84) and the K1 1000 m (3:57.44), won her Olympic quarter-final in Paris in 1:49.43, and closed the year with that Samarkand mixed K2 bronze — at the same championships where Dostál, the anchor of Dukla Praha, added a world title in the K1 500 m. The 2026 international season then traded individual lanes for crew seats, with B-final placings in Montreal and Montemor-o-Velho as the working results of a boat still being assembled.

Račice sits on top of that sequence as the domestic control test, and she passed it with room to spare. Her winning 1:51.88 in the K1 500 m lands within a second of her 2024 World Cup silver run, delivered four races into a championship week rather than as a single peak — and her kilometre, won by 2.34 seconds, confirmed that the endurance base built over years of wildwater racing has survived the transfer intact. The context of the opposition matters too: the women she beat were not domestic journeywomen but the core of the Czech international programme, as the review of Dukla's championship and the full results make plain.

What Poznań will ask of her

The honest context for the four golds: in the 2026 international season, Paloudová's individual K1 starts have given way to crew boats. At the Montreal World Cup she finished second in the K2 500 m B final with Hanusová and third in the K4 500 m B final; at the European Championships in Montemor-o-Velho the Czech K2 placed fifth in the B final. Domestically untouchable, internationally rebuilding — those are two different scoreboards, and Račice only settles the first.

That is exactly what makes the next month interesting. The ICF Canoe Sprint and Paracanoe World Championships in Poznań begin on 26 August, and the Czech women's kayak crews that swept Račice — the K2 with Hanusová, the K4 with Betlachová and Sobíšková — are the boats her season has been engineered around. A crew that wins its national K2 final by 0.86 seconds over the U23 world championship silver medallists Zárubová and Sobíšková is not short of reference points. She will not carry the Czech flag alone: Martin Fuksa, the Olympic C1 1000 m champion, and Denisa Řáhová of Klub vodních sportů Praha — a triple canoe champion in Račice — face the same domestic-to-international translation test.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who is Anežka Paloudová?

A Czech kayaker born on 19 January 1999 in Český Krumlov, racing for Univerzitní sportovní klub Praha. She won six wildwater canoeing world championship golds between 2016 and 2019 before switching to canoe sprint, competed at the Paris 2024 Olympics in the K1 500 m and won mixed K2 500 m bronze at the 2024 world championships with Josef Dostál.

How many gold medals did Paloudová win at the 2026 Czech nationals?

Four: the K1 500 m (1:51.88), the K1 1000 m (4:17.27), the K2 500 m with Zuzana Hanusová (1:46.91) and the K4 500 m (1:37.93). She also finished fifth in the K1 200 m.

Why didn't Paloudová win the K1 200 m in Račice?

The 200 m was the one distance where the sprint specialists held her off: she finished fifth in 0:43.17, 0.61 seconds behind Štěpánka Sobíšková and Kateřina Zárubová, who dead-heated for gold in 0:42.56.

Was Paloudová at the Paris 2024 Olympics?

Yes — she qualified in the K1 500 m at the European qualifier in Szeged and became the first Czech female kayaker at the Games in 16 years, finishing 15th on her Olympic debut.

Has the switch from wildwater to sprint paid off?

The trophy case says yes on the domestic front: four national titles in a single championships, plus 2024 World Cup silver in the K1 500 m and K1 1000 m and world championship bronze in the mixed K2. The remaining frontier is an individual A final at a major international championships in an Olympic-class event.

Where can I find Paloudová's full results from the 2026 Czech nationals?

Complete results of all her races — heats, semi-finals and finals — are available on the Czech Canoe Sprint National Championships 2026 event page, alongside every other final of the four days.

What connects Paloudová and Josef Dostál?

They are engaged — and they are also crewmates. Dostál helped Paloudová with kayak technique when she moved from wildwater to sprint, and in 2024 they won mixed K2 500 m bronze together at the world championships in Samarkand. In Račice they combined for five senior national titles.

Four golds, one shared story with the most decorated Czech kayaker of his generation, and a set of crew boats aimed squarely at Poland: Anežka Paloudová leaves Račice as the face of the Czech women's programme. The follow-up question gets asked from 26 August at the world championships in Poznań.

Sources: official race results of the Czech Canoe Union (kanoe.cz), International Canoe Federation (canoeicf.com), Wikipedia.

View on PaddleStats