Kraków (from our correspondent) – “I would really like to stand on those steps with my brother one day,” admitted the two-time world champion. What was missing from them this time? “We were driving next to the Italians and the Spaniards, who were first and second, so I thought to myself: What the hell, how could we drive so well? But in the finish I didn’t perform as well as I would have imagined,” said Martin Fuksa self-critically.
Still, the sibling duo is showing a visible rise. Final B in Szeged, seventh place at the next World Cup in Poznań, now fifth in Krakow, albeit in European competition. “But here are the fastest crews in canoeing. For me, it’s positive that we can provide enough for everyone,” says Fuksu.
Photo: Ivana Roháčková
Petr (front) and Martin Fuks after the final of the European Games in Krakow.
How to turn “enough” into “beat”? The thirty-year-old canoeist ponders over that too. “All these guys drill the trunks non-stop. Maybe it would also move us three tenths ahead if we worked on it,” he says.
But the priority for him is still a single. “I’m confident in it, I’ve been doing well on it for years,” he says. However, he has an admirable 27 medals at home from the European and world championships alone. “So I’m a little afraid to focus only on doubles. On the other hand, you can see how the brother is improving year by year,” he praises his sibling who is five years younger.
They are thus well placed to win an Olympic nomination at the World Championships in Duisburg and to repeat the joint participation from Tokyo in Paris. The eight fastest crews advance. But Martina Fuksa is driven by a different motive than “just” participation.
“I’m not thinking about progressing to the Olympics, I’d really like to climb to those levels with my brother, that would be nice,” adds Fuksa, whose great track, the 500 single canoe, awaits him in Krakow on Friday and Saturday.