Fuksa secured direct advancement by winning the heat, in which he beat Viktor Stěpanov from Kazakhstan by two hundredths. “I looked at the results and it was very close, but when I reached the finish line, I thought I had won. I guess I saw it somehow,” he said in a recording for the media. Then he also took part in the 500m, where he jumped in for his brother Martin, who will arrive at the venue of the opening SP later due to family reasons. He advanced to the semi-finals on the longer course.
That is on the agenda on Friday, as well as the eventual final of the 500m and the climax of the 200m race. Petr Fuksa could thus complete up to three races before joining Martin Fuksa in the 500 meter double sled race on Saturday. Therefore, he will consider his program. “I don’t know if I want to tire myself with that number one. We’ll see if I finish everything,” he commented.
Jakub Špicar, Jakub Brabec, Jakub Zavřel and Radek Šlouf entered the four-kayak in the five hundred. “We discounted it out of ambition. It was a complete novelty, Kuba Brabec and I had never sat in a boat. We were all without nervousness,” Šlouf said.
The quad kayak had a successful initial run. “I didn’t expect at all that we could win the heat, but from the first shot we rode very well. It was very nice. I enjoyed every shot and I don’t remember feeling this way for a long time,” praised the bronze Olympic medalist from Tokyo. This time, the Czech boat did not lose even at the beginning of the race, which used to be its weakness. “Until our acceleration, which is about 180 meters before the finish line, we were very close to the front of the starting field. And we still had some power left for the end,” Šlouf added.