2006 Flatwater Racing World Championships
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The 2006 Flatwater (Canoe) Racing World Championships were held in Szeged, Hungary, from August 17 to 20, 2006.
Men race as individuals, pairs and quads over 200m, 500m and 1000m in both Canoe (Canadian) (C) and Kayak (K) events, giving a total of 18 gold medals. Women compete for only 9 gold medals as they race in kayak events only.
Host nation Hungary won twelve of the twenty-seven gold medals. Germany, who had topped the medal table in Zagreb in 2005, took four golds, as did Russia.
Hungary's medal haul included victories in all nine women's finals, Natasa Janics and Katalin Kovács winning six titles each.
In the men's races, Mexican Everardo Cristóbal shocked the top Europeans with victory in the individual Canadian canoe final, giving Mexico their first-ever world championship gold medal. The K1 1000m, the blue riband event, was won by Markus Oscarsson of Sweden.
Germany's Ronald Rauhe won three gold medals to give him a career total of ten. György Kolonics, who holds the (men's) record for paddlers currently in competition, won the fourteenth gold medal of his career in the C2 1000m final. Russia's Maxim Opalev won his eleventh title. Other perennial favourites such as Andreas Dittmer, Eirik Verås Larsen and Adam van Koeverden however were unable to repeat previous successes. Germany won their first-ever C4 title (1000m). In the men's K4 races, however, no German boats made the podium - the first time that had happened since 1977. Special mention should also go to Czech Petr Procházka, the oldest man at the championships, who took gold in the C4 200m final.
