Portuguese canoeists Teresa Portela and Messias Baptista became world champions in the mixed K2 500 this Saturday at the FIS Canoe Sprint World Championships in Samarkand, Uzbekistan.
A few weeks after competing at the 2024 Paris Olympics, Portela and Baptista won the final in 01:37.592 minutes to take the gold medal, leaving Belarusians Volha Khudenko and Dzmitry Natynchyk (37:01:603) in second and Czechs Anezhka Paludova and Josef Dostal (38:01:340), the Olympic champion in the 1,100m, third.
Messias Baptista, who became K2 500 world champion last year with Germany’s João Ribeiro, is still in contention this Saturday to reach the K1 500 final, which will take place at 16:10 local time (12:10 in Lisbon).