USA's paracanoe team for Poznań: the largest delegation they have ever sent, and one man who medals

Published

2026-08-10T12:46:56+00:00

The United States will bring nine paracanoe athletes to the 2026 ICF Canoe Sprint and Paracanoe World Championships in Poznań on 26–30 August — the largest paracanoe delegation the country has ever sent to a world championships, according to the American Canoe Association. It is also the part of the American team that actually wins medals: every world championship medal the USA has taken in this sport since 2022 belongs to one man, and he was on the podium again in July.

Overview: the USA paracanoe squad for Poznań

Nine athletes, four of them entered across two boat types. The form line comes from the Montreal World Cup in July, the last international regatta before Poznań.

Four A-finals in Montreal, one podium, and three athletes who reached semi-finals in their first or second international season. For a programme that fielded a handful of boats a cycle ago, that is the shape of genuine growth — and it explains the ACA's line about the largest delegation better than the headcount does.

Blake Haxton: three world championship podiums and a story that starts in a hospital

Haxton — listed by the ACA under his full name, Steven Blake Haxton — is the reason American paracanoe has a medal record at all. In March 2009, in his senior year of high school in Columbus, Ohio, he contracted necrotizing fasciitis. Over three days he went from captain of his school's rowing team to organ failure and the amputation of both legs. He came back to sport first in rowing, then in the va'a.

The results are consistent in a way nothing else on this roster is. He took bronze in the VL2 200 m at the 2023 World Championships in 52.089, having won his heat in 53.301. He took bronze again at the 2024 Paracanoe World Championships in 52.250, again after winning his heat — that one in 50.550, the fastest time he has recorded in the class. At the Paralympic Games he has silver from Tokyo and bronze from Paris in the same event.

In Montreal this July he won his heat in 54.810 and finished second in the A-final in 54.250, 1.040 s behind Brazil's Fernando Rufino de Paulo, who won in 53.210, and 1.090 s clear of Hungary's Róbert Suba in third. It was the only medal of any colour won by an American at that regatta.

The number that frames Poznań is his own: 50.550, set in 2024. Rufino de Paulo's winning time in Montreal was 53.210. Haxton has already gone quicker than the time that won this July's World Cup — two seasons ago, in a heat, on a different course. If Poznań gives him fast water, the gap between silver and gold is closer than the Montreal margin suggests.

The converts: four Paralympic golds on ice, two more in a pool

The most striking thing about this roster is where several of its members came from.

Farmer is a four-time Paralympic champion — in sled hockey. He won his fourth consecutive gold with the United States at the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Games in March, where he was the tournament's leading scorer and named its most valuable player. He then made his paracanoe World Cup debut in Montreal in July after roughly a month of preparation on the water, and finished fourth in the VL3 semi-final in 56.740, having gone 55.290 in his heat. He also raced the KL2, reaching the semi-final in 59.710.

Read that sequence again: a March gold medal on ice, a July semi-final on water, one month between the two. He is not a medal contender in Poznań, and nothing in the numbers pretends otherwise — 56.740 sat 6.000 s behind the Montreal VL3 winner. But a fourth place in a World Cup semi-final in a sport he had trained for four weeks is a genuinely unusual data point.

Rudy Garcia-Tolson, entered in both the kayak and the va'a, arrives with a similar collection from a different sport. Born with pterygium syndrome and multiple associated conditions, he had fifteen surgeries by the age of five before asking his parents for a double above-knee amputation. He won Paralympic gold in the 200 m individual medley SM7 in Athens in 2004 and again in Beijing in 2008, breaking his own world record twice in the Beijing final, and added bronze in the 100 m breaststroke. In 2009 he became the first double above-knee amputee to complete a full Ironman triathlon.

Wallace, who races the KL3, is the third of the group and the one with the deepest paracanoe grounding. He lost part of his right leg at ten in a boating accident, found sled hockey through a camp for children with limb loss, and has won Paralympic gold twice — PyeongChang 2018 and Beijing 2022 — plus three world titles and the Best Defenseman award at the 2022 Winter Games. He has been on the US paracanoe national team since 2022 and missed Paris 2024 qualification by a fraction of a second, in a period when he was racing a world para ice hockey championship and a paracanoe championship in the same week.

His Montreal numbers were solid rather than spectacular: fourth in his heat in 43.750, fourth in the semi-final in 44.420. The KL3 A-final there was won by Brazil's Gabriel Porto in 40.040 from Miqueias Rodrigues in 40.500, with Spain's Juan Valle third in 40.830 — the class is currently the deepest in men's paracanoe, and 44.420 is not yet in the conversation. At the 2024 Paracanoe World Championships he was third in the KL3 B-final in 41.510.

Shah, in the VL2, completes the group: fifth in his Montreal heat in 65.550 and fourth in the semi-final.

The women's boats: five hundredths, and a British wall in VL3

Gray produced the second-best American result of the summer and the one that came closest to changing the medal table. She was second in her KL2 heat in 53.830 and fifth in the A-final in 54.120 — 0.050 s behind Hungary's Katalin Varga in fourth, and 0.750 s behind Germany's Anja Adler in third.

Above them, the class belongs to Great Britain. Charlotte Henshaw won in 49.720 and Emma Wiggs was second in 52.350, a British one-two with 2.630 s between them and 4.400 s between the winner and the American. Fourth place is reachable in Poznań on the evidence of five hundredths; the podium requires something Gray has not shown yet.

The women's VL3 tells a harder version of the same story. Elwart, born in 1983, was seventh in the Montreal A-final in 61.090, with Hoare eighth in 65.120. Hope Gordon of Great Britain won in 55.290 from France's Elea Charvet in 58.430 and Canada's Erica Scarff in 58.710. Poland's Monika Kukla was fifth in 59.280 — 1.810 s ahead of Elwart, a useful reference point for anyone watching the home crowd in Malta.

Elwart's best championship result came in a different class: fourth in the VL2 200 m at the 2023 World Championships in 60.503. She was ninth in the VL3 at the 2024 Paracanoe World Championships in 64.990, and this May in Brandenburg she was fourth in the B-final in 68.280 after a semi-final of 63.580. The 61.090 she produced in Montreal is her fastest of the season by 2.490 s.

Kayla Woputz completes the women's va'a group.

What KL and VL actually mean

This roster is a good excuse to sort out the naming, because it will come up several dozen times across the five days in Poznań.

Paracanoe uses two types of boat. KL is the kayak: the athlete faces forward and uses a double-bladed paddle, exactly as in the Olympic classes. VL is the va'a, a boat descended from Polynesian design, with an outrigger float called an ama and a single-bladed paddle worked on one side. That is why athletes like Farmer and Garcia-Tolson can be entered in both — two entirely different techniques, the same 200 m distance, the same regatta.

The number after the letters describes range of function, and the higher it is, the more movement the athlete has available. In the kayak, KL1 covers athletes with no trunk or leg function, driving the boat almost entirely with arms and shoulders; KL2 covers partial trunk and leg function, with the athlete sitting upright and often using a backrest; KL3 means a functional trunk and partial leg function, allowing a footrest and rotation through the whole torso. VL1 to VL3 follow the same logic in the va'a.

The practical consequence for spectators: times are not comparable across classes. In Montreal the winning time in the men's KL3 was 40.040 and in the men's VL2 it was 53.210. That is not a difference in form — it is a different propulsion system and a different range of movement. Comparisons only work inside a class, which is exactly why Haxton's 50.550 from two seasons ago is a number that matters going into Poznań.

What's next

Poznań runs from 26 to 30 August on the Malta course, with the paracanoe programme integrated into the same five days as the Olympic classes rather than held separately. That matters practically for the athletes doubling up — Farmer and Garcia-Tolson are both entered in kayak and va'a — and it matters for the audience, because the paracanoe finals sit inside the same finals blocks as the sprint.

Our full build-up to the championships lives in the series hub, the 2026 world championships preview. The American sprint squad — seventeen athletes led by Olympic medallist Nevin Harrison — is covered in the USA sprint team preview, and the other national squads announced so far are broken down for Poland, Great Britain and Australia.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who is on the USA paracanoe team for the 2026 World Championships in Poznań?

Nine athletes. Kayak: Jack Wallace (KL3), Declan Farmer (KL2), Rudy Garcia-Tolson and Emily Gray. Va'a: Blake Haxton (VL2), Yasir Shah (VL2), Farmer and Garcia-Tolson in the men's classes, and Jillian Elwart, Kayla Woputz and Tatiana Hoare in the women's.

Why is this delegation historically significant?

The American Canoe Association describes it as the largest paracanoe delegation the USA has ever fielded at a world championships. Four of those athletes reached A-finals at the Montreal World Cup in July, and three more reached semi-finals.

When does paracanoe race at the 2026 World Championships?

Between 26 and 30 August 2026 in Poznań, inside the same five-day programme as the Olympic sprint classes, on the Malta course.

Who is the USA's best medal chance in paracanoe?

Blake Haxton in the VL2 200 m. He has bronze from the 2023 World Championships (52.089), bronze from the 2024 Paracanoe World Championships (52.250), Paralympic silver from Tokyo and Paralympic bronze from Paris, and he was second at the Montreal World Cup in July in 54.250.

Can Blake Haxton win gold in Poznań?

The arithmetic says it is live. His 50.550 from 2024 is 2.660 s faster than the time Fernando Rufino de Paulo needed to win in Montreal this July. The Brazilian beat him by 1.040 s on the day, so the question is not whether Haxton has the speed but whether he can bring his 2024 form to Malta.

Does converting from another Paralympic sport actually work?

Declan Farmer is the test case. He won his fourth straight sled hockey Paralympic gold in March 2026 as the tournament's MVP, started paddling roughly a month before the Montreal World Cup, and finished fourth in a VL3 semi-final. That is remarkable for four weeks of preparation — and it is also 6.000 s off the winning pace, which is the distance between an impressive debut and a medal.

How close is Emily Gray to a podium?

Closer to fourth than to third. In Montreal she was 0.050 s behind Katalin Varga in fourth and 0.750 s behind the bronze medallist Anja Adler — but 4.400 s behind winner Charlotte Henshaw, in a class where Great Britain took the top two places.

Which country dominates paracanoe going into Poznań?

On Montreal evidence, Great Britain and Brazil. Britain took the women's KL2 one-two and the women's VL3 title; Brazil won the men's VL2, the men's VL3 and the men's KL3, taking the top two places in the last of those.

For all the depth this roster represents, Poznań still comes down to one lane. Blake Haxton has stood on a world championship podium in each of the last two editions he has contested and starts as the only American with a realistic claim on gold; behind him, Emily Gray needs half a second and Jack Wallace needs rather more. Live results from the 2026 World Championships will be on PaddleStats throughout the five days in Malta.

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