German Canoe Sprint Championships 2026: 130 Titles, Schopf Wins 3
- Published
- 2026-09-07T13:24:26+00:00
- Author
- PaddleStats
Full competition results: German Canoe Sprint & Paracanoe Championships 2026
The 105th German Canoe Sprint and Paracanoe Championships closed on the Beetzsee in Brandenburg an der Havel on 6 September, six days and 130 titles after they began. Kanu Club Potsdam took twenty of them, Jacob Schopf took three of the biggest, and the women's K1 1000 m ended with two boats sharing the same time and the same title.
Overview
Two days after the last final in Poznań, the German fleet was back on the water at home. The German Canoe Sprint & Paracanoe Championships 2026 ran from 1 to 6 September on the Beetzsee, the course Brandenburg has used for national finals for decades, and the programme was the full pyramid: 45 senior titles, 30 junior, 32 junior younger and 23 youth, with 15 paracanoe classes inside that total.
| Club | Gold | Silver | Bronze | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kanu Club Potsdam im OSC Luftschiffhafen | 20 | 15 | 16 | 51 |
| RG Sachsen | 11 | 17 | 14 | 42 |
| RG KV NRW | 11 | 8 | 2 | 21 |
| Sportclub Magdeburg | 10 | 11 | 6 | 27 |
| SC DHfK Leipzig | 9 | 7 | 6 | 22 |
The table needs one line of explanation. RG stands for Renngemeinschaft, a composite crew assembled by a state association from paddlers who train at different clubs, so RG Sachsen and RG KV NRW appear only in crew boats — every single-seat title on their sheet is impossible by definition. Potsdam's twenty golds came from a club roster; Saxony's eleven came from a selection.
Among the seniors the order changes again. Potsdam won eight senior titles, RG Sachsen five, RG KV NRW five, SV Para Kanu Halle five and SC DHfK Leipzig four. A paracanoe club finishing level with the two biggest kayak programmes in the country is not a quirk of counting — Halle put Anas Al khalifa, Anja Adler and Maik Polte on top of five different podiums.
Star Athlete
Jacob Schopf left Brandenburg with the two individual titles that matter most in German kayaking. He won the K1 1000 m in 3:49.94 and the K1 500 m in 1:43.80, then took the K2 1000 m with Leon Michael Reckzeh in 3:25.83.
That last one was the race of the regatta. Schopf and Reckzeh crossed 0.10 seconds ahead of Jonas Borkowski and Max Rendschmidt — a hundredth-scale margin over four minutes of racing, between an Olympic champion in each boat.
Reckzeh is the name to keep. Before the K2, the 200 m had already gone his way: 0:35.42, with Rendschmidt second at 0:35.99 and Romeo Schroller third. Beating a three-time Olympic champion over 200 m and then beating him again over 1000 m in a pair is the sort of week that reorganises a national squad.
Rendschmidt did not leave empty-handed. He won the K2 500 m with Borkowski in 1:35.06, anchored the RG KV NRW K4 500 m in 1:27.02 alongside Borkowski, Jan Peter Graf and Jens Ternirsen, and added the mixed K2 500 m with Chelsea-Lynn Roussiekan. Three golds and two silvers, both silvers lost by less than six tenths.
Club performance
Potsdam's fifty-one medals are the highest total any German club has put together this season, and the spread matters more than the sum: golds in men's and women's kayak, in canoe, in crew boats and in single seats. Florin Bange alone won the C1 1000 m in 4:07.95, the C2 500 m with Hannes Müller in 1:52.28 and the mixed C2 500 m with Carlotta Loske, who had already taken the women's C1 1000 m in 5:17.24.
RG Sachsen's shape is different — eleven golds but seventeen silvers and fourteen bronzes, the profile of a squad that fills finals rather than wins them. Saxony's clearest statement came in the mixed C8 200 m, where the two RG Sachsen boats finished first and second, 0:38.00 to 0:38.19, with Peter Kretschmer, Nico Pickert and Lykka Strobel in the second of them.
Pickert had the best canoe week of anyone. He won the C1 200 m in 0:41.12, the C1 500 m in 1:57.25, the C2 1000 m with David Bauschke in 4:10.88 and the mixed C4 500 m with Bauschke, Kretschmer and Stefan Holtz. Four titles, all of them in the Olympic and non-Olympic canoe classes that Germany has been rebuilding since Paris.
In the women's canoe, Tabea Gabelunke and Luise Lämmel of SC DHfK Leipzig were in almost every final: Gabelunke won the C1 200 m in 0:51.15 and both crew titles alongside Lämmel, who took the C2 500 m and the C4 500 m with Carolina Kleinwächter and Leni Wagemann. Strobel beat them both over 500 m singles in 2:31.82.
The same club arithmetic runs through the paracanoe programme, which filled fifteen classes and produced the week's most efficient double. Anas Al khalifa, who fled Syria in 2014, arrived in Germany in 2015 and raced for the Refugee Paralympic Team in Tokyo before competing for Germany, won the KL2 200 m in 0:52.53 and the VL2 200 m in 1:00.81.
Anja Adler matched him across two boats — the women's KL2 200 m in 0:52.77 and the VL3 200 m in 1:03.51 — and added a bronze in the mixed para K2 with Elias Geike. Martina Willing won the KL1 200 m, Claudia Fischer the KL3 200 m in 0:52.97, Dennis Braun the men's KL1 in 0:56.02 and Adrian-Rouven von Grüner the men's KL3 in 0:52.88.
The open para events were the loudest. Justus-Jonas Günther won the men's 200 m in 0:50.12 and came back for the mixed K2 with Lena Bläsing in 0:49.55, while Johanna Pflügner and Marius Radow took the other mixed K2 title in 0:44.77.
Trends and comparisons
A year ago in Köln, the 2025 championships belonged to Finja Hermanussen. She won the K1 200 m in 0:44.53, the K1 1000 m in 4:13.09 and the K1 5000 m in 23:44.25. This year she won the K1 500 m in 1:52.32 and nothing else.
What replaced her is not one paddler but four. Chelsea-Lynn Roussiekan took the 200 m in 0:41.57 — 2.96 seconds faster than the winning time of 2025. Jule Hake and Caroline Heuser could not be separated over 1000 m, both stopping the clock at 4:17.35 and both being declared champion. Hake then won the 5000 m in 23:35.50 with Enja Rößeling 0.97 behind and Liv-Grete Liwowski a further 0.11 back — three women inside 1.1 seconds after nearly twenty-four minutes of racing.
The four of them then took the K4 500 m together for RG KV NRW in 1:42.42, which is the cleanest possible summary of where the German women's kayak squad now sits.
The men's times pull in two directions, and the honest reading is the water rather than the athletes. Over 200 m the winning time dropped sharply — 0:38.10 in Köln, 0:35.42 on the Beetzsee. Over the longer distances it went the other way: the K1 1000 m title took 3:44.71 in 2025 and 3:49.94 this year, the C1 500 m 1:51.50 against 1:57.25, the C1 5000 m 23:39.93 against 23:58.86. Sprint courses reward a following wind and punish the same wind over four laps of a 5000 m loop; Brandenburg gave both on the same weekend.
The most successful athlete of the entire six days was not a senior. Marie-Sophie Syskowski of Rheinbrüder Karlsruhe won five titles — four junior and one senior, the women's C2 200 m with Cheyenne Heidl in 0:49.02. Behind her, Marie Freisinger and Finja Hoppe took five junior younger titles each and Kjell Brück four. A German championship that hands its highest gold count to a junior is telling you where the next squad comes from.
What's next
There is no more domestic racing of this size on the German calendar in 2026. The reference points now are the season just finished — the ICF Canoe Sprint and Paracanoe World Championships in Poznań, where the German squad raced from 26 to 30 August — and the two other national championships held in the same week: Denmark's in Silkeborg and Hungary's in Szolnok.
For the athletes, the calendar question is LA28. Schopf, Rendschmidt, Pickert, Hake and Roussiekan will all be inside the age window; Reckzeh, at the front of a 200 m field and a 1000 m pair in the same week, has just made himself part of that conversation.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who won the German K1 1000 m titles in 2026?
Jacob Schopf won the men's title in 3:49.94. The women's title was shared: Jule Hake and Caroline Heuser both finished in 4:17.35 and both were crowned champion.
What was the fastest winning time of the championships?
The men's K4 500 m, where RG KV NRW covered the distance in 1:27.02. Over 200 m, Leon Michael Reckzeh won the K1 in 0:35.42.
Which club won the most medals?
Kanu Club Potsdam im OSC Luftschiffhafen, with 51 — twenty gold, fifteen silver, sixteen bronze. RG Sachsen had 42, but only eleven of them gold.
Where and when were the championships held?
On the Beetzsee course in Brandenburg an der Havel, from 1 to 6 September 2026.
Is Finja Hermanussen's run at the top of German women's kayak over?
The numbers say her range has narrowed, not her speed. In 2025 she won the 200 m, the 1000 m and the 5000 m; this year she won the 500 m and finished off the podium over 1000 m, a distance she took in 4:13.09 twelve months ago. She is 500 m champion of Germany at a moment when three team-mates are pushing the other three distances.
Did Max Rendschmidt underperform at home?
Three titles is not underperformance. But both of his defeats were narrow and both came against the same opponent: 0.57 behind Leon Michael Reckzeh over 200 m, then 0.10 behind Reckzeh's K2 with Schopf over 1000 m. For a three-time Olympic champion, losing twice in a week to the same younger opponent is as much the story of the regatta as his own three golds.
Was the Beetzsee simply a fast course this week?
Only over 200 m. The men's K1 200 m title was 2.68 seconds quicker than in Köln in 2025, which is an enormous margin over that distance, while the 1000 m title was 5.23 seconds slower, the C1 500 m 5.75 seconds slower and the C1 5000 m nearly twenty seconds slower. That pattern — sprint quick, distance slow — is what a strong tailwind down the course looks like.
Can Jule Hake turn domestic dominance into a global title?
She has been to seven world championship finals and come away with four silvers and three bronzes, never gold. Brandenburg gave her four national titles, including a 5000 m won by under a second and a 1000 m she could not be separated from. The speed is there; what she has not yet had is a final where the race came to her.
Six days on the Beetzsee left German canoe sprint with three answers and one open question. Jacob Schopf is still the fastest single-seat kayaker in the country, Nico Pickert the most complete canoeist, and Kanu Club Potsdam the deepest club programme. The open question wears bib numbers from RG KV NRW: four women who between them hold the 200 m, 1000 m, 5000 m and K4 500 m titles, and a shared gold that nobody in Brandenburg wanted to break.