Canoe Marathon World Championships 2026 recap: two golds for Coelho in Gualeguaychú

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2026-10-26T12:10:05+00:00

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Full competition results: ICF Canoe Marathon World Championships - Gualeguaychu

Denmark finished on top of the medal table at the 2026 ICF Canoe Marathon World Championships in Gualeguaychú, Argentina, the first edition of the championships held in South America. The Danes won four golds, four silvers and two bronzes in the 24 junior, under-23 and senior finals, level with Portugal on golds but ahead on silvers. Portugal's Ricardo Coelho was the only paddler to win two golds and a silver: he took the C1 and the C2 titles and finished second in the C1 short race.

The championships ran from 21 to 25 October on the Gualeguaychú River, straight after the masters championships on the same water. The paracanoe races opened the programme; the junior, under-23 and senior races began on 22 October. It comprised 46 races: 24 junior, under-23 and senior finals, all of them designated world championship (WCH) races in the official results, eight short-race heats and 14 paracanoe races. The start lists included 353 paddlers from 37 countries, plus a group of Individual Neutral Athletes (AIN).

The course was built on a 3.6 km lap with a 1 km short lap. The senior men's K1 and K2 were the longest races at 29.8 km, with eight full laps, a short lap and seven portages, where paddlers get out and run along the bank carrying their boats. The short races covered 3.4 km: three laps and two portages.

Overview: Denmark top the table, Hungary win the most medals

The table covers the 24 junior, under-23 and senior finals, including the six short-race finals. Paracanoe races are not included. Each boat counts as one medal, so a K2 or C2 crew wins one medal for its nation.

Denmark's four golds came in kayak and in three different age groups. Mads Brandt Pedersen retained his senior K1 title, Valdemar Jørgensen won the under-23 K1 and then the senior K2 with Jonathan Hansen, and Karen Andersen and Frida Hinge took the junior women's K2. Portugal won all four of their titles in canoe: Gabriel Fernandes won the junior C1 and, with Duarte Cunha, the junior C2, and Coelho added the two senior titles.

Hungary reached the podium 17 times, more than any other nation, but won only three golds. Borka Zagyvai took two of them, the senior C1 short race and the under-23 C1, and Mihály Pluzsik the third, in the under-23 C1. Eight Hungarian silvers included two lost by about a second: Lotti Jambor and Panka Zatykó finished 0.99 s behind the Danes in the junior women's K2, and Panna Sinkó and Panna Csépe 1.09 s behind Spain in the senior women's K2. Eighteen countries and the neutral athletes won at least one medal. If the 12 paracanoe races (excluding the Open class) are added, Spain would top the table with five golds, four silvers and one bronze: three of their golds came from paracanoe, through Ricardo Junquera, Juan Valle and Araceli Menduina.

All 24 world champions of 2026

Paracanoe: two world titles for Spain

Only two of the 14 paracanoe races were designated world championship races: the men's KL2 and KL3, with nine paddlers on each start list. Both went to Spain. Ricardo Junquera won KL2 in 57:04.65, 57.30 s ahead of the 2025 winner Markus Swoboda of Austria, with Argentina's Emilio Atamanuk third. Juan Valle won KL3 by 3.50 s from his team-mate Nicolás Martínez, the 2025 winner, with Britain's Timothy Lodge third.

The other 12 paracanoe races, with between one and six starters, were designated World Cup races. Britain's Jeanette Chippington won two of them, in KL1 and VL2, and so did Kazakhstan's Maxim Bogatyrev, in VL1 and KL1. The opening day is covered in our paracanoe recap.

Star Athlete: Ricardo Coelho, three races and three medals

Coelho raced three times in three days and finished on the podium every time. On Friday he took silver in the C1 short race, 16.99 s behind Spain's Jaime Duro, who retained his title from Győr. Poland's Mateusz Borgiel was fourth in that final.

On Saturday Coelho won the senior C1 over 22.6 km, six full laps, a short lap and five portages, in 1:45:10.54. Pluzsik, the under-23 champion from the previous day, finished 5.95 s behind him and Borgiel took bronze, 42.16 s back. Thirteen canoeists started and ten finished. The defending champion, Poland's Mateusz Zuchora, and Coelho's C2 partner Rui Lacerda were among the three who did not.

On Sunday the two Portuguese defended their C2 title. Coelho and Lacerda won in 1:39:38.61, 34.71 s ahead of Duro and Manuel Garrido, the same Spanish crew that finished second behind them in Győr. Borgiel and Zuchora took bronze, as they did a year ago, so the top three of 2025 finished in the same order.

The result reverses the order from June. At the European Canoe Marathon Championships in Pitești Borgiel won the C1, with Coelho third, and Borgiel and Zuchora beat Coelho and Lacerda in the C2. The world medals lists show how quickly the Portuguese crew has risen: Coelho and Lacerda won C2 bronze in Metković in 2024, gold in Győr in 2025 and gold again in Gualeguaychú. The C1 gold was his first individual senior world title.

Coelho was the only paddler to win two golds and a silver. Karen Andersen also won three medals, gold in the junior K2 and silver in both junior K1 races, each time behind Dianora De Bilio. Five others won two golds: Fernandes, De Bilio, Zagyvai, Jørgensen and Italy's Leonardo Candela, who won the junior K1 and then the junior K2 with Matteo Savella.

Trends & comparisons: five titles retained, Hungary's golds down from ten to three

Gualeguaychú staged the same 24 junior, under-23 and senior events as Győr in 2025. Five of them were won by the same paddlers or crews: Pedersen in the senior K1, Duro in the C1 short race, Pluzsik in the under-23 C1, Coelho and Lacerda in the C2, and Tania Fernández and Tania Álvarez in the senior women's K2. The Spanish pair won in 1:55:12.60. Sinkó and Csépe, bronze medallists in Győr, moved up to silver this time.

Other champions from 2025 were beaten. Fernando Pimenta, the 2025 short-race winner, took bronze in that race, 3.53 s behind South Africa's Hamish Lovemore. Pimenta and José Ramalho, the 2025 K2 champions, were seventh, 37.08 s behind the winners. Sweden's Melina Andersson won the short race by 10.90 s but finished fourth in the K1, 1:07.65 behind Australia's Rebecca Mann. Zuchora did not finish the C1.

Two winners of the 2025 under-23 K1 races stepped up to senior level and took bronze. Philip Knudsen did so in the men's K1, 1:34.19 behind Pedersen, and Pernille Hostrup in the women's K1, 29.35 s behind Mann.

In the same 24 events in Győr, Hungary won ten golds; in Gualeguaychú they won three. Several of their 2025 women's champions were not on the start lists in Argentina: Giada Bragato (senior C1), Zsófia Csorba (C1 short race), Zsóka Csikós (K1 short race) and Lili Kolozsvári (junior K1 and junior K1 short race). Denmark went from three golds to four in the same events, and Portugal also from three to four.

Poland: two bronzes for Borgiel

Borgiel left with two bronze medals and a fourth place. In the C2 he and Zuchora finished 55.72 s behind the Portuguese and 16.89 s ahead of the neutral crew of Roman Erlinekov and Sergei Nemov. The pair have now won a C2 medal at every world championships since 2019: silver in Shaoxing (2019) and Pitești (2021), bronze in Ponte de Lima and Vejen, gold in Metković, and bronze in Győr and Gualeguaychú. Eryk Wilga was fifth in the under-23 C1, while Igor Wyszkowski finished tenth in the under-23 K1 and did not finish the senior K1.

Records & technical analysis: margins under two seconds

Four finals were decided by less than two seconds, all of them in the long-distance races. The closest was the under-23 men's K1: after 26.2 km Jørgensen beat Norway's Ivar Buch by 0.88 s, with Hungary's Csanád Sellyei 2.76 s behind the winner. The two women's K2 finals were decided by 0.99 s and 1.09 s.

The senior men's K2 closed the championships with a margin of 1.75 s. Pedersen and Knudsen, silver medallists in Győr, did not finish. Jørgensen and Hansen won in 1:58:08.98 ahead of the Argentine crew of Juan Cáceres and Pedro Ratto, and Adrián Boros and Tamás Erdélyi repeated their bronze from 2025. Lovemore and Keegan Vogt were tenth.

The silver of Cáceres and Ratto was Argentina's best result in the 24 junior, under-23 and senior finals. Ratto had finished fourth in the senior K1 on Saturday, 0.90 s behind Knudsen. In 2025 he won under-23 K1 silver in Győr. The hosts' other medal came from María Garro, third in the senior women's K1 short race.

The widest winning margin of the 24 finals belonged to Chile's María José Mailliard, who won the senior women's C1 by 2:13.08 from Hungary's Lili Matkovics, with Ukraine's Liudmyla Babak third. Mailliard is a sprinter by background: she has won world sprint titles in the C1 500 m (2021), C1 1000 m (2023) and C1 5000 m (2024), and competed at the Tokyo and Paris Olympic Games. Hers was the only gold won by a South American paddler in the 24 finals.

Short-race form did not carry over to the long distance for most winners. Lovemore won the K1 short race and finished ninth over 29.8 km, and Vogt, the junior short-race champion, finished 3.51 s behind Candela in the junior K1. De Bilio and Zagyvai were the exceptions. De Bilio won the junior women's short race by 2.50 s and the 19 km K1 by 2.52 s, with Andersen second both times; Zagyvai followed her senior C1 short-race win with the under-23 C1 title.

What's next: Silkeborg in 2027

The next ICF Canoe Marathon World Championships go to Denmark. According to the international federation's calendar, Silkeborg will stage the championships from 2 to 5 September 2027. Denmark will race at home as the winners of the Gualeguaychú medal table, with Pedersen, Jørgensen, Hansen, Andersen and Hinge among their 2026 champions. Andersen and Hinge won among the juniors, while Jørgensen added the under-23 K1 title to his senior K2 gold.

Of Portugal's four titles, Coelho can defend the C1 and, with Lacerda, the C2. Fernandes, born in 2009, will still be a junior next season and can defend the junior C1. Hungary won the most medals in 2026, but seven golds fewer than in Győr.

The week in Gualeguaychú is covered day by day in our masters recap, the paracanoe recap, the Thursday report and the Saturday report. The masters results are on the ICF Masters Canoe Marathon World Championships page.

Frequently Asked Questions

Which country won the 2026 Canoe Marathon World Championships medal table?

Denmark, with four golds, four silvers and two bronzes in the 24 junior, under-23 and senior finals. Portugal also won four golds but two silvers. Hungary won the most medals, 17, including three golds. With the paracanoe races added (excluding the Open class), Spain would lead with five golds, four silvers and one bronze.

Who won two gold medals in Gualeguaychú?

Six: Ricardo Coelho (C1 and C2), Gabriel Fernandes (junior C1 and C2), Dianora De Bilio (junior K1 short race and K1), Borka Zagyvai (senior C1 short race and under-23 C1), Leonardo Candela (junior K1 and K2) and Valdemar Jørgensen (under-23 K1 and senior K2). Coelho also won silver in the C1 short race.

How long were the courses?

The lap measured 3.6 km and the short lap 1 km. The senior men's K1 and K2 covered 29.8 km (eight full laps and a short lap) with seven portages, the senior women's K1 and K2 26.2 km, and the short races 3.4 km with three laps and two portages.

Did Hungary underperform in Gualeguaychú?

Not on overall medals: Hungary won 17, more than any other nation. They won only three golds, though, against ten in the same 24 events in Győr in 2025. Several 2025 champions, among them Giada Bragato, Zsóka Csikós and Lili Kolozsvári, were not on the start lists, and two Hungarian K2 crews lost by 0.99 s and 1.09 s.

Is Ricardo Coelho now the man to beat in the C1?

One championship cannot settle that. In Gualeguaychú he won the C1 and C2, but he was not unbeatable. Jaime Duro beat him by 16.99 s in the short race, and Mateusz Borgiel beat him in the C1 at the European Championships in June. Over 22.6 km in Gualeguaychú, Coelho was 42.16 s faster than Borgiel.

How did Polish paddlers do?

Mateusz Borgiel won bronze in the senior C1 and, with Mateusz Zuchora, in the senior C2. It was the pair's seventh C2 medal in seven world championships since 2019. Borgiel was also fourth in the C1 short race.

Did Argentina win a world title at home?

No. In the 24 junior, under-23 and senior finals the hosts won a silver, through Juan Cáceres and Pedro Ratto in the senior K2, 1.75 s behind Denmark, and a bronze, through María Garro in the senior women's K1 short race. Emilio Atamanuk took bronze in the paracanoe KL2.

Where are the next Canoe Marathon World Championships?

In Silkeborg, Denmark, from 2 to 5 September 2027.

Ricardo Coelho left Gualeguaychú with two world titles and a silver medal. His next chance to defend the C1 and C2 titles comes in Silkeborg in September 2027, where Denmark will race at home as the leading nation of the 2026 ICF Canoe Marathon World Championships.

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