Paddle Daily

Paddle Daily Paddling news by paddlers, for paddling fans.

The first starters are off from Lechlade-on-Thames! At 10 am, non-stop racers and relay teams set off in rainy condition...
29/08/2026

The first starters are off from Lechlade-on-Thames! At 10 am, non-stop racers and relay teams set off in rainy conditions with a blustery tailwind: just 200 kilometres to Teddington.
Graham O'Regan led the start: while he'll be one of the quickest non-stop racers this weekend, he opted to join the early start to avoid the traffic of the 2pm mass start. Graham will spend most of the race paddling alone.
Chris Davison was the quickest SUP off the start: in his third T200 now this year, he's the favourite to win non-stop solo SUP. But his mission this year is bigger than winning. Chris is aiming to take the official Guinness World Record for fastest SUP of the navigable, non-tidal Thames. That record is currently 31 hours, 57 minutes held by Craig Sawyer from the first year of the race (2024).
Follow all the action, including paddler interviews, on the Paddle Daily Thames 200 Ultra Live Blog, linked in the comments.
Photos by Henry Carter.

As the final relay team rosters were submitted this week, a thrilling figure appeared: after the Thames 200 Ultra starte...
28/08/2026

As the final relay team rosters were submitted this week, a thrilling figure appeared: after the Thames 200 Ultra started with 97 paddlers in 2024, it's set to triple that in 2026. More than 300 paddlers are entered. Most racers are part of one of the 33 relay teams, where each individual or crew will complete at least one of the six legs of about 25-35km each. Some paddlers are doubling up to complete 60km or more during the event.
The rest of the competitors are tackling the entire 200km distance in one go, non-stop.
Across each category, old and new rivalries will take the stage this weekend. Follow the action in real time via Stories and the Paddle Daily Live Blog.
Which team do you think will win the relay?

23/07/2026

The senior men's K1 race at the European Marathon Championships in Romania was one of the most exciting in a long time. Mainly because Mads Brandt Pedersen didn't just paddle away from the entire group on Lap 2 (see: World Championships 2025 in Gyor). After some exciting group racing at the beginning, it was Pedersen, Knudsen, and Vold who pulled away from the rest. Ultimately, Jon Amund Vold was able to meaningfully challenge Pedersen for the win. Though Vold didn't win, it showed that perhaps the seemingly invulnerable Pedersen could actually be beaten someday, maybe by Vold, and maybe sooner than anyone expected.
On the latest episode of Paddlecast, Ivan Lawler categorizes the current era as "a period of on-and-on'ers". Mads on the men's side, and Melina Andersson on the women's side, both like to break away early and spend most of the race alone. They're able to "on and on" at a pace that no one else can match. But Ivan says that you don't need to be able to match that pace for that duration in order to challenge these "on and on'ers". You just have to be able to stay with them long enough to out-sprint them.
Vold has shown he can do this with Mads, and even successfully out-sprinted him in the 5k at the Sprint European Championships (though Vold was disqualified due to missing a buoy). On the women's side, a similar battle is shaping up between Andersson and Anna Sletsjøe.
Ivan compared this current period of domination by Pedersen and Andersson to the era of Manuel Busto, who was the on-and-on'er who broke Ivan's winning streak in Dartmouth in 2000. The arrival of the next era is inevitable, it's just a question of who and when...
Listen to the full episode of Paddlecast on YouTube, Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts 🎙️

20/07/2026

Pauline Jagsch is on the type of trajectory that every athlete dreams of. So far, it's taken her to her first senior K1 European Championship title and her first World Cup K1 gold. And she's making it look easy with her distinctively relaxed-looking technique.
Pauline medalled at the Paris Olympics in K4, and if she keeps improving the way she has, she'll be a top contender for LA, possibly in K1, K2, and K4. But for now, her focus is on the World Championships in Poznan in a few weeks. It's a lot of racing to do all three (K1, K2, K4) but Pauline has proven that she can handle it.
The women's K1 500m in Poznan will absolutely be a race to watch.

14/07/2026

6th place in the A Final, just 0.02 of a second off 5th. It's a season best, and the GB team's best result yet this Olympic cycle. What's helped them level up?
🧠 Their mental game 💪🏻
Kristina Armstrong and Zoe Clark say the individual and K2 results of every paddler in their crew give them confidence that physically, they're right where they need to be. It's been the mental training and belief that they belong in the A Final, that they have all the tools they need to start challenging for medals, that has gotten them this result.
Olympic qualification points count for 1.5x at the World Championships in 6 weeks, and this team is confident that they'll score even more points in Poznan.

11/07/2026

The A final spots have all been allocated for the K1 Men’s 1000.
Tom Green from Australia had the fastest time in the semis, a 3:41. Everyone faced headwinds on course. Green took silver at last year’s world championships, and he’s doubled up racing in the K4 this weekend as well.
Fernando Pimenta won his semifinal in 3:47. He’s coming off a bronze medal at the European Championships.
In the two world cups so far, it’s been Pimenta ahead of Green in Szeged (where Pimenta won) and Green ahead of Pimenta in Brandenburg, so this is going to be tight.
Josef Dostal won his semifinal in 3:47 as well, he raced his classic strategy of waiting until the end to move up to the front.
Tobias Hammer from Germany, Andrea Schera of Italy, Thorbjorn Rask of Denmark, Agustin Vernice from Argentina, Samuel Balaz from Slovakia, and Francisco Cubelos of Spain are your other A finalists. Dan Johnson from Great Britain, Martin Nathell from Sweden, and Maguire Reed from Australia missed out very narrowly. Jakob Thordsen from Germany is an A final regular, but after a strong start, he dropped off to finish 8th in his semi.

The race is scheduled for Saturday afternoon.

11/07/2026

Day 2 ✅ Sprint World Cup Montreal

In the C1 1000, Martin Fuksa kept up his winning streak despite a challenge from Daniel Fejes and the young Gabriele Casadei. It looked like Casadei went into this race on a mission to beat Fuksa, and he gave it a very good shot. But the near-unbeatable Fuksa picked it up at the finish for a clear win, and a late push from Fejes saw him take silver ahead of Casadei.

The K4 racing was drama-free today, although the absence of the top German crew was noticeable in the men’s race. The Hungarians took the win, which surprised even them after they’d had slightly lackluster performances in their heat and semi. They won from Lane 1. Last year’s world champions, Portugal, took silver, and Australia bronze.

China won the women’s K4 gold by almost one second, a huge margin in this event. Spain took silver and Germany bronze. There was one second separating second to sixth place.

Ukrainians Liudmyla Luzan and Anastasiia Rybachok won the C2 500 very decisively. Luzan is unbeaten in both C1 and C2 since last year’s world championships. China took silver and Spain bronze. Canadians Katie Vincent and Zoe Wojtyk finished 6th, maybe a little bit disappointing for them racing at home, but Katie still has her C1 races and they’ll both race C4 on Sunday.

Aimee Fisher looked really good in the K1 1000, she said after the race that she was still pushing hard to the end worried about a challenge from her competitors, but none came. She won by 4 seconds ahead of Zsoka Csikos and the young Caroline Heuser.

See you tomorrow for more 🫡

09/07/2026

Day 1 in Montreal ✅
Men's K4: The Australians won their semifinal by half a second, which in this event, is a lot. Poland, Spain, Portugal, Czechia, Italy, Serbia, Denmark, and Hungary have all qualified too.
The absolute shock of the day was Germany’s top K4 getting disqualified after two false starts in their semifinal. Theirs was one of many false starts today, possibly the most false starts in one day at an ICF event? It’s not clear exactly why there’s so many, but hopefully everyone can cool their paddles a bit in the buckets for the rest of the weekend.
Women’s K4: China had the fastest qualifying time from the heats. Poland and Germany both went straight through from the heats as well. Those three should have a hard fight for the medals, with potential challenges coming from Spain or maybe Slovakia or Hungary. Norway, Great Britain, and Australia are also in the A Final.
K1 Men’s 1000: Eeryone who progressed from today’s heats has to go through the semifinals tomorrow at 10am local. Look out for Pimenta, Dostal, Vernice, Rask, Green, Thordsen... The Hungarians Bálint Kopasz and Adam Varga are not racing here, so it opens things up a bit for the rest of the field.
K1 Women’s 500: It's the same system where everyone has to race a semi, which led to some slightly surprising results in the heats. Hemien Peters of Belgium beat Nan Wang of China, and Mia Medved of Slovakia beat Zsoka Csikos of Hungary. It bodes well for those two in the semis, but it's not enough to say that Wang or Csikos should be worried. Pauline Jagsch, fresh off her European championship titles, had the fastest qualifying time. Their semis will start at 10:24 local.
In paracanoe, Team GB is looking just as strong as always. Charlotte Henshaw, Emma Wiggs, and Hope Gordon looked untouchable in their races. And in the men’s racing, Brazil looked dominant -- not by as much of a margin as the GB women, but with consistently top placements.
The day ended with a deluge of rain, and some close women’s C2 racing in the 200m. It’s a big weekend for women’s canoe, with the Olympic power houses from Canada, Katie Vincent and Sophia Jensen, racing in their home country.
Follow

Address

London

Telephone

+447747450625

Website

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Paddle Daily posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Contact The Business

Send a message to Paddle Daily:

Shortcuts

Share

Category