Italy's team for the 2026 Canoe Sprint World Championships in Poznan

Published

2026-08-12T08:45:09+00:00

Full competition results: ICF Canoe Sprint and Paracanoe World Championships - Poznan

Italy comes to the 2026 Canoe Sprint World Championships in Poznan (26–30 August) carrying a question its own federation cannot answer: whether Carlo Tacchini, Olympic silver medallist in Paris, is still the leader of this canoe programme. The squad was named on 10 August — twenty-one athletes, and the best form in the boat belongs to somebody else.

Italy's squad for the 2026 World Championships in Poznan

Nine men and eight women in kayak, three men and one woman in canoe. The structure of the team is striking: seventeen of the twenty-one come from the sports groups of Italy's uniformed services, and the entire canoe contingent — four athletes, three of them medallists at the highest level — belongs to a single squad, Fiamme Oro.

There is one more date in the announcement, easy to miss. The rest of the team flies to Poland on 24 August, but Dal Bianco does not join until 28 August — in other words, mid-championships.

Tacchini and Casadei, or a changing of the guard mid-cycle

Start with Italy's most valuable asset: Olympic silver in the C2 500 m in Paris, taken in 1:41.08. Tacchini and Casadei sat in that boat. A year later they won the European title together in Racice (1:36.06), and before that, in 2023, they brought home world championship bronze from Duisburg.

The 2026 season split that pair into two different stories.

In the double they still race together and still hurt people: second at the Szeged World Cup in 1:36.32, fourth in Montreal, fifth at the European Championships. In the single their paths came apart, and sharply.

Tacchini did not reach a single A final over C1 1000 m all season. Not in Szeged, where he finished ninth in the B final; not in Brandenburg, where it was eighth in the C final; not in Montreal, eighth in the B. Over five kilometres he was thirteenth at the European Championships and did not start at all in Montreal. For an athlete who finished fifth in this event at the Paris Olympics, that is a slide too steep to overlook.

Casadei spent the same months doing the opposite. Third in Szeged, fourth in Brandenburg, fourth at the European Championships, third in Montreal in 4:10.29 — four starts over C1 1000 m, four A finals. A year ago in Montemor-o-Velho he won two U23 world titles in one week: C1 500 m in 1:54.31 and C1 1000 m. He arrives in Poznan as the man whose form is rising exactly where his own crewmate's is falling.

Italy therefore has a double stake here: a double that can still win, and a single where the name of the leader is changing.

The Montemor generation moves up

Casadei's wins in Portugal were not an isolated case. Italy took thirteen medals there and topped the U23 medal count — and two women from that team now travel to Poznan as senior mainstays.

Lucrezia Zironi won K1 1000 m in Montemor, adding silver over 200 m and bronze over 500 m. This season she moved that up a level without any grace period: European bronze in K1 1000 m (3:59.51), bronze in K2 500 m, third in Brandenburg in both, third in Montreal in the double. Six podiums in a season she was supposed to spend finding her feet among seniors.

Olympia Della Giustina travelled the same road in the canoe. In Montemor she won C1 500 m in 2:09.22, comfortably ahead of Portugal's Beatriz Fernandes. In 2026 she brought two silvers home from the European Championships — 200 m and 500 m — and finished third over 500 m in Montreal. She is also the only female canoeist in the entire Italian team, so on the Malta course she carries the discipline alone.

Zironi races the double with Giada Rossetti, and that boat has been remarkably steady: third in Brandenburg, third at the European Championships, third in Montreal, fifth in Szeged. Four starts, three podiums.

Craciun, and two titles in events the Olympics do not stage

Nicolae Craciun stands apart in this team. Born in Moldova, an Italian citizen since 2019, he holds two world titles — C2 500 m and C2 1000 m, the latter won in Duisburg in 2023 alongside Daniele Santini in 3:34.56. They led that race from gun to line, with Germany crossing seven tenths later.

Both events share one thing: neither is on the Olympic programme. For part of the field, then, the World Championships are the only stage on which a title is available at all.

Craciun has raced mostly C1 in 2026. Fifth in Brandenburg over 500 m, eighth at the European Championships, seventh in Montreal over 200 m, and a B-final win over 500 m in Montreal. Those are top-ten results rather than top-three ones, and the Poznan question is whether he can reproduce in a single what he did in a crew.

Among the kayakers the steadiest is Andrea Schera: fourth over 5000 m at the European Championships (21:18.36), sixth in Montreal over 1000 m, a B-final win in Brandenburg. Tommaso Freschi brings European bronze from 2025 in K2 500 m and bronze from last year's Poznan World Cup — on the very course he returns to in two weeks.

The shortest distance belongs to Andrea Domenico Di Liberto, and his 200 m times have sat in a narrow band for years: 35.01 s in this season's A final in Szeged, 35.12 s two years earlier on the same water, and a World Cup win in 34.80 s back in 2020. The year before that he won a World Cup 200 m in the double. Hundredths decide everything over this distance, and the Italian has been circling the same line for six years.

Agata Fantini occupies her own place in this squad — her results here reach back to the 2013 World Cup in Racice, the longest record of anyone on the team. The 2026 season, though, she spent in B and C finals: fourth over 1000 m in Montreal, second in the C final in Brandenburg, with a season-best fourteenth over 5000 m at the European Championships.

What's next: Poznan in the new Olympic arithmetic

These championships weigh more than a typical post-Olympic year. Qualification for Los Angeles 2028 runs on a combined ranking gathered across the whole of 2026 and 2027, and world championship points carry a 1.5 multiplier — a win is worth 1500 points against 1000 at a World Cup or continental championship.

For Italy that translates into a concrete sum. Casadei and Della Giustina enter this cycle at an age where Los Angeles is a natural target rather than a distant projection. Tacchini is playing for something else in Poznan: for the gap between his double and his single to turn out to be one weak season rather than the start of the end.

Italy already knows this water, as it happens. At the World Cup staged here a year ago, Tacchini was second over C1 1000 m and second in the double with Casadei, Casadei added third in the single, and Freschi took third in K2 500 m. Four podiums on the same stretch they return to in a fortnight.

The programme of non-Olympic events, where Craciun won his titles, does not exist in that arithmetic. The World Championships in Poznan will therefore be two competitions at once for the Italian team: a points exercise aimed at the Games, and the last arena for those whose events lead nowhere near them.

Frequently Asked Questions

When and where are the 2026 Canoe Sprint World Championships in Poznan?

The 2026 Canoe Sprint World Championships in Poznan run from 26 to 30 August on the Malta regatta course. They are a combined canoe sprint and paracanoe world championships.

How many athletes are on Italy's squad for the 2026 World Championships in Poznan?

Italy's squad numbers twenty-one: nine male and eight female kayakers, three male canoeists and one female canoeist. The federation announced it on 10 August 2026.

Who is the biggest name on Italy's team for the World Championships in Poznan?

Carlo Tacchini, Olympic silver medallist from Paris 2024 in the C2 500 m. He is joined by Gabriele Casadei, his partner from that Olympic double, and by two-time world champion Nicolae Craciun.

Is Carlo Tacchini's era coming to an end?

He failed to reach an A final over C1 1000 m in any of his four starts in 2026 — B finals in Szeged and Montreal, a C final in Brandenburg — and finished thirteenth over 5000 m at the European Championships. In the double with Casadei he is still near the front, silver in Szeged included, so this looks like a crisis in the single rather than the end of a career.

Who is taking over as the leader of Italy's canoe programme?

Gabriele Casadei. In 2026 he made four A finals from four starts over C1 1000 m, with bronze in both Montreal and Szeged, and a year earlier he became a double U23 world champion over C1 500 m and C1 1000 m.

What has Nicolae Craciun won?

Two world titles in the double canoe, over 500 m and 1000 m. He took the second in Duisburg in 2023 alongside Daniele Santini in 3:34.56. Neither event is on the Olympic programme.

Which Italian women can medal at the World Championships in Poznan?

Lucrezia Zironi and Olympia Della Giustina, both U23 world champions in 2025. Zironi won two European bronzes in 2026, Della Giustina two silvers. Zironi also races K2 500 m with Giada Rossetti — a boat that reached the podium in three of its four starts this season.

Why do the World Championships matter more than a World Cup?

Because under the Los Angeles 2028 qualification system, world championship points carry a 1.5 multiplier. A win is worth 1500 points, against 1000 for a World Cup or continental championship victory.

Italy arrives at Malta with a team whose loudest name and best form no longer belong to the same person. Carlo Tacchini has a single to rebuild in Poznan, Gabriele Casadei has to prove that last year in Montemor was not about an age bracket, and two women from that same medal-winning group are now contesting senior podiums. The rest of the field is tracked in our guide to the Poznan World Championships, and we have already covered the teams from Denmark, Great Britain, Australia and the United States.

Read next: Hungary's team for Poznań — the fastest Hungarian C2 in history and a row of defending champions.

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