The Men's C1 at the

2021 ICF Canoe Slalom World Championships The 2021 ICF Canoe Slalom World Championships took place from 22 to 26 September 2021 in Bratislava, Slovakia under the auspices of International Canoe Federation (ICF). It was the 41st edition. The events took place at the Čunovo Water Sports Ce ...

took place on 23 and 26 September 2021 at the Čunovo Water Sports Centre in

Bratislava Bratislava (, also ; ; german: Preßburg/Pressburg ; hu, Pozsony) is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Slovakia. Officially, the population of the city is about 475,000; however, it is estimated to be more than 660,000 — approxim ...

. It was the 41st edition of the event, and 53 athletes from 27 nations competed. The event was won by Václav Chaloupka of the Czech Republic, competing in his first World Championships. Slovak

Alexander Slafkovský Alexander Slafkovský (born 11 March 1983) is a Slovak slalom canoeist who has competed at the international level since 1998. Slafkovský won 15 medals at the ICF Canoe Slalom World Championships with ten golds (C1 team: 2003, 2009, 2010, 2011, ...

won silver, matching his position from

2013 File:2013 Events Collage V2.png, From left, clockwise: Edward Snowden becomes internationally famous for leaking classified NSA wiretapping information; Typhoon Haiyan kills over 6,000 in the Philippines and Southeast Asia; The Dhaka garment fact ...

and

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, whilst 2018 World Champion Franz Anton won bronze.

Background

Reigning World Champion Cédric Joly did not have the opportunity to defend his title won in La Seu d'Urgell in

2019 File:2019 collage v1.png, From top left, clockwise: Hong Kong protests turn to widespread riots and civil disobedience; House of Representatives votes to adopt articles of impeachment against Donald Trump; CRISPR gene editing first used to experim ...

, after he missed out on domestic selection. World No. 1 and Tokyo bronze-medallist

Sideris Tasiadis Sideris Tasiadis (born 7 May 1990) is a German slalom canoeist of Greek descent who has competed at the international level since 2005.Son of greeks him lived in Thrace, Greece at the village Komara for 10 years during his childhood. Career In 2 ...

also didn't compete.

Benjamin Savšek Benjamin Savšek (born 24 March 1987) is a Slovenian slalom canoeist who has competed at the international level since 2002. He won eight medals at the ICF Canoe Slalom World Championships with two golds (C1: 2017, C1 team: 2022), three silvers ...

entered the event as Olympic Champion and had the opportunity to become the first male to become World and Olympic Champion in the same calendar year. Frenchman

Denis Gargaud Chanut Denis Gargaud Chanut (born 22 July 1987) is a French slalom canoeist who has competed at the international level in C1 since 2004. Between 2009 and 2011 he also competed in the C2 category alongside Fabien Lefèvre. He won a gold medal in the C ...

came into the event having won two World Cup rounds en route to his first overall World Cup title. Gargaud Chanut also won the

European Championships The European Championships is a multi-sport tournament which brings together the existing European Championships of some of the continent's leading sports every four years. The inaugural edition in 2018 was staged by the host cities of Berlin, ...

this year and the 2011 World Championships on this course. Host nation Slovakia also fielded a strong team, with World No. 2

and No. 4 Matej Beňuš.

Competition format

The Men's C1 event in

canoe slalom Canoe slalom (previously known as whitewater slalom) is a competitive sport with the aim to navigate a decked canoe or kayak through a course of hanging downstream or upstream gates on river rapids in the fastest time possible. It is one of th ...

uses a three-round format with heats, a semifinal and final. Athletes complete up to two runs in the heats. In the first heat, the 20 fastest men qualify automatically for the semifinal, whilst the rest complete another run in the repêchage second heat for a further 10 qualification positions. The final rank of non-qualifying athletes is determined by their second run score. Athletes start in the reverse order of their heats position in the semifinal and complete a single run, with the top 10 advancing to the final. The athlete with the best time in the single-run final is awarded gold. Penalties of 2 or 50 seconds are incurred for infractions such as missing a gate, touching a gate, or not negotiating gates in numerical order. A team may request up to one review of a penalty per boat in the heats or semifinals phases, with no enquiries considered in the finals.

Schedule

All times are

Central European Summer Time Central European Summer Time (CEST), sometimes referred to as Central European Daylight Time (CEDT), is the standard clock time observed during the period of summer daylight-saving in those European countries which observe Central European Time ...

(

UTC+2 UTC+02:00 is an identifier for a time offset from UTC of +02:00. In ISO 8601, the associated time would be written as 2020-11-08T23:41:45+02:00. This time is used in: As standard time (year-round) ''Principal cities: Cairo, Pretoria, Cape ...

)

Results

Home favourite

topped the first heat with a clean 83.96, more than 2 seconds clear of next best Olympic Champion

. Pole Kacper Sztuba won the second heat, 3.03 off Slafkovský's first run time. Martin Thomas and Raffaello Ivaldi were the two highest

ranked A ranking is a relationship between a set of items such that, for any two items, the first is either "ranked higher than", "ranked lower than" or "ranked equal to" the second. In mathematics, this is known as a weak order or total preorder of o ...

athletes to miss out on the semifinal. 26 of the 30 who progressed to the semifinal did so with a penalty-free run. Savšek finished fastest in the semifinal with a time of 91.18, ahead of 2018 World Champion Franz Anton and Slafkovský. Václav Chaloupka became the 2021 C1M World Champion with a clean run of 92.02, the first to become both Senior and U23 World Champion in this event. Slafkovský won silver, just 0.15 seconds behind Chaloupka due to a touch on the penultimate gate, whilst Anton won bronze. Savšek appeared set to win the event before a mistake at the bottom of the course which incurred him a 50-second penalty. Penalties are included in the time shown. The fastest time in each round is shown in bold.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:2021 ICF Canoe Slalom World Championships - Men's C1 ICF Canoe Slalom World Championships World Championships ICF International sports competitions hosted by Slovakia Sport in Bratislava Canoeing in Slovakia ICF