USA's team for the Poznań world championships: seventeen sprinters and a medal drought since 2022

Published

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

The United States will send seventeen sprinters to the 2026 ICF Canoe Sprint and Paracanoe World Championships in Poznań on 26–30 August, and the squad announced by the American Canoe Association carries one uncomfortable number into Malta: the last time an American won a world championship medal in an Olympic-class boat was 2022. Four seasons, one name — Nevin Harrison — and a team that now has to decide whether it is rebuilding or arriving.

Overview: who the USA is sending to Poznań

The ACA roster splits into four groups, and the form lines behind them come from a three-regatta World Cup season in Szeged, Brandenburg and Montreal.

Read the right-hand column twice. Across three World Cups the United States put exactly one boat into an A-final podium fight in the Olympic classes — Harrison's C-1 200 m in Montreal, where she finished 0.610 s outside the bronze — and the rest of the season lived between the B and C finals. That is the honest baseline for Poznań.

It is also not the whole story. Two of the four groups are visibly younger than they were in Paris, and both produced results this summer that did not exist twelve months ago: Ecker won a World Cup semi-final over 500 m, and a canoe pair born seven years apart put a boat into two A-finals over 200 m. Whether that becomes a medal in Poznań is a different question. Whether it is progress is not really in doubt.

Nevin Harrison: the champion whose semi-final beats her own final

Harrison remains the most decorated athlete in this squad by a distance, and the trajectory is worth laying out year by year, because it is the single most important storyline the Americans bring to Malta.

She won the C-1 200 m world title at the 2019 World Championships in 49.300 — the first American ever to become world champion in sprint canoe. She won Olympic gold in Tokyo in 45.932, in the first edition of the event ever contested at the Games. She won the world title again at the 2022 World Championships in Halifax in 49.870. Then the line bends: fourth at the 2023 World Championships in 45.925, and silver at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games in 44.130 — one hundredth of a second behind Canada's Katie Vincent, who stopped the clock at 44.120.

Losing an Olympic title by 0.010 s is not a decline. What happened next needs more care. In Szeged she was ninth in the A-final in 45.400. In Brandenburg, on slow water, she was sixth in 49.550. In Montreal she was fifth in 45.840, with Liudmyla Luzan winning in 44.680, Sophia Jensen second in 45.160 and the bronze going to Cuba in 45.230.

Here is the detail that changes the reading of that sequence. In Szeged, Harrison's semi-final was 44.940 — third in her heat, and a time that would have won bronze in Montreal by 0.290 s. In Montreal her semi-final was 48.200 for second place, and her final was 2.360 s quicker. The speed is present; the ability to produce it twice in ninety minutes on the same day is what has gone missing. In 2021 and 2022 she was a paddler who raced her fastest when it counted. In 2026 her fastest laps of the season have come in the round nobody remembers.

Poznań gives her a course she knows — Malta has hosted World Cup racing repeatedly, including the 2025 World Cup — and a field that has not run away from her. The gap between winning and fifth in Montreal was 1.160 s. That is a large margin in a 45-second race, but it is not the margin of an athlete who no longer belongs.

Jonas Ecker: two U23 world titles and the semi-final that mattered

If the Americans get a second story in Poznań, it will probably be Ecker's. At the 2025 Junior and U23 World Championships he won both the K-1 500 m in 1:41.920 and the K-1 1000 m in 3:35.690 — a double that no amount of context can shrink. He had already raced an Olympic A-final: in Paris he and Small finished eighth in the K-2 500 m in 1:30.020, four years after the same pairing was seventh at the 2022 World Championships in 1:37.600.

The 2026 season was his first full senior campaign as a single-boat paddler, and it read like one. Ninth in the Brandenburg K-1 1000 m A-final in 3:41.500; seventh in the Szeged B-final over the same distance in 3:30.330. Then Montreal, and a shift: he won his K-1 500 m semi-final in 1:43.180 and finished fifth in the A-final in 1:37.900, behind Jacob Schopf (1:36.430), Josef Dostál (1:36.790), Jean van der Westhuyzen (1:36.890) and Poland's Aleks Borucki (1:37.410).

One second and one hundredth from bronze, in a final containing the reigning Olympic champion over 1000 m and two of the fastest 500 m paddlers of the cycle. That is the closest an American man has come to a senior podium in this class in years, and it happened in July.

The men's crew boat picture is thinner but not empty. In Montreal the K-4 500 m of Small, Ecker, Talbert and Cook was third in its heat in 1:22.830 before finishing eighth in the semi-final in 1:24.480. In Brandenburg the quartet of Talbert, Cook, Connell and Jones was seventh in the heat and eighth in the semi. A heat time inside 1:23 is a real marker for a crew still assembling itself; the second race of the day is where the work remains.

Connell, born in 2007, is the youngest man in the group and the one whose numbers move fastest. In Montreal he reached the K-1 1000 m semi-final and finished eighth in the B-final in 3:50.030, having gone 3:44.040 in his heat — a year after racing the junior category at the U23 and junior worlds, where he won his K-1 500 m heat in 1:46.100.

The women's canoe pair: a 2007-born medallist and a 5000 m specialist

The most interesting American boat of the summer was not in a kayak. Harper, born in 2007, took two bronze medals at the 2025 Junior and U23 World Championships — C-1 200 m in 49.570 and C-1 500 m in 2:12.910 — and moved straight into senior crew racing with Ghizila, who is seven years older and built her career over long distance.

Together they finished fifth in the C-2 200 m A-final in Szeged in 42.760, and fifth again in Brandenburg in 43.790. In Montreal they won the C-2 500 m B-final in 2:02.820. Spain's Angels Moreno and Viktoria Yarchevska won the Montreal 200 m title in 43.470 — a time the Americans have already beaten this season, on a different course and in different conditions, but beaten.

Ghizila's own event tells a second story. She was fourth in the C-1 5000 m in 2024 in 29:41.790, eleventh in 2025 and tenth in Szeged this May in 30:42.070. Harper, racing the same distance in Szeged, was fifth in 29:46.250 — quicker than Ghizila's fourth-place time from two seasons earlier. Albrecht, fifth in the C-4 500 m at the 2022 World Championships, spent 2026 in the C-1 500 m, reaching the semi-final in Montreal and finishing seventh in the B-final in 2:22.360.

Among the men's canoes, Kasperbauer is the closest to a final. He was eighth in the C-1 200 m A-final in 2024 in 40.640, was fourth in the Montreal B-final this July in 42.230 and eighth in the Szeged B-final in 40.780. Jonathan Grady has built a distance-racing profile — fifth in the C-1 5000 m in Poznań in 2025 in 24:44.510, seventh in Brandenburg in 26:33.920, tenth at the 2023 World Championships — while his brother Ryan raced four events across Szeged and Montreal, including the C-1 5000 m.

The veterans: McElroy and the long race

McElroy, born in 1985, is the longest-serving athlete in the squad and the only one with World Cup medals from a previous decade: silver in the K-2 1000 m in Račice in 2013 in 3:39.969, bronze at the same venue in 2011 in 3:50.944 and bronze in Szeged in 2013 in 3:54.966. She was sixth in the K-1 5000 m at the 2022 World Championships and fifteenth in that event in Montreal this July in 28:42.670.

Motamedi, born in 1989, races the same distance — twentieth in Szeged in 28:18.110 and twenty-ninth in Brandenburg — while Wolgamot, a K-1 500 m specialist, won the C-final in Brandenburg in 2:01.590 and reached the semi-finals at all three World Cups. Wilding was sixth in the K-1 500 m A-final at the 2023 World Championships in 1:57.712, the strongest single result any American woman has produced in the kayak this cycle.

What's next

Poznań runs from 26 to 30 August on the Malta course, with the paracanoe programme integrated into the same five days. The world championships close the Olympic-class season; for the American squad the immediate targets are the C-1 200 m, where Harrison has been on the podium of every major championship she has finished inside the top four, and the men's K-1 500 m, where Ecker arrives with the fastest American time of the cycle.

Our coverage of the Poznań build-up continues in the series hub, the 2026 world championships preview, alongside the squad breakdowns for Poland, Great Britain and Australia. The American paracanoe squad — the largest the country has ever sent to a world championships — is covered separately in the USA paracanoe team preview.

Frequently Asked Questions

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

Seventeen sprinters. Men's kayak: Jonas Ecker, Aaron Small, Sean Talbert, Augustus Cook, Cole Jones and Finn Connell. Women's kayak: Elena Wolgamot, Arezou Motamedi, Kali Wilding and Kaitlyn McElroy. Men's canoe: Jonathan Grady, Ryan Grady and Kenneth Kasperbauer. Women's canoe: Nevin Harrison, Audrey Harper, Andreea Ghizila and Emma Albrecht.

When and where do the 2026 Canoe Sprint World Championships take place?

On the Malta course in Poznań, Poland, from 26 to 30 August 2026. The paracanoe programme runs across the same days.

What was the USA's best result of the 2026 World Cup season?

Harrison's fifth place in the C-1 200 m A-final in Montreal in 45.840, and Ecker's fifth place in the men's K-1 500 m A-final at the same regatta in 1:37.900. Ecker also won his semi-final there in 1:43.180.

Is Nevin Harrison's era over?

The results say she has changed, not finished. Gold in 2019, Olympic gold in Tokyo, gold in 2022, fourth in 2023, Olympic silver in 2024 by 0.010 s, and World Cup placings of ninth, sixth and fifth in 2026 form a genuine downward line. But her Szeged semi-final of 44.940 was quicker than the time that won bronze in Montreal, and the gap from first to fifth in that Montreal final was 1.160 s. Poznań will decide whether the problem is speed or repeatability; the evidence points hard at the second.

Can the USA win an Olympic-class medal in Poznań?

It has not happened since Harrison's 2022 world title, and the 2024 World Championships in Samarkand ended with no American medals at all. The two realistic routes are Harrison in the C-1 200 m and Ecker in the K-1 500 m — and both need to find roughly a second they have not yet shown twice in one day.

Is Jonas Ecker the new face of American men's kayaking?

Two U23 world titles in 2025 over 500 m and 1000 m, an Olympic A-final in the K-2 500 m in Paris, and a World Cup semi-final win in July make the case as well as any set of numbers can. He is the first American man in this cycle to finish within 1.010 s of a senior World Cup podium in a single kayak.

Which American boat improved most in 2026?

The C-2 200 m of Harper and Ghizila. Two fifth places in A-finals — 42.760 in Szeged, 43.790 in Brandenburg — and a B-final win over 500 m in Montreal, from a pairing whose younger half was collecting junior world medals twelve months earlier.

Who is the most experienced athlete in the squad?

Kaitlyn McElroy, born in 1985, with World Cup medals in the K-2 1000 m going back to 2011 and 2013, sixth place in the K-1 5000 m at the 2022 World Championships, and a fifteenth place over the same distance in Montreal this July.

Poznań will not be decided by roster size. It will be decided by whether Nevin Harrison can put her semi-final speed into an A-final, and whether Jonas Ecker can convert a July breakthrough into an August one. Everything else the Americans bring to Malta — a 2007-born canoe medallist, a K-4 heat inside 1:23, a 1985-born paddler still racing the 5000 m — is a bet on the next cycle rather than this week. Full results from the 2026 World Championships will be live on PaddleStats throughout the regatta.

Read next: Denmark's team for Poznań — a fourteen-strong squad built around one defending world champion.

Read next: Italy's team for Poznań — seventeen of the twenty-one come from the sports groups of Italy's uniformed services.

Read next: Hungary's team for Poznań — 37 athletes, the largest team at these championships.

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