Portugal’s Fernando Pimenta in the K1 500m, Teresa Portela and Francisca Laia in the K2 200m won silver medals in their respective categories on Sunday at the ICF Canoe Sprint World Championships in Samarkand, Uzbekistan.
Pimenta was the first Portuguese to take part in the final day of competition, finishing second in the K1 500 in 1:38.049 minutes to win his 23rd World Championship medal, having won bronze at the event last year in Duisbusgo, Germany.
The race was won by Czech Josef Dostal (1:37.309), who two weeks ago became Olympic champion in the K1 1000 at Paris 2024 – a race in which the Portuguese finished sixth – with Belarusian Vladislav Kravets, competing under the neutral flag, rounding out the podium with a time of 1:38.437.
Soon after, Portuguese duo Teresa Portela and Francisca Laia also won silver in the women’s 200m with a time of 37.420 seconds, behind Russia’s Anastasia Dolgova and Svetlana Chernigovskaya (37.326), who won gold, and Belarus’ Olga Khudenko and Maryna Litvinchuk (37.667), who won bronze.
Portugal have now won three medals at the World Championships in Samarkand after Teresa Portela and Messias Baptista became world champions in the K2 500 mixed race on Saturday.
The Portuguese delegation will also take part in three other finals this Sunday: Messias Baptista in the men’s K1 200 (10:10 in Lisbon), Fernando Pimenta, Messias Baptista, Teresa Portela and Francisca Laia in the mixed K4 500 (10:32) and Fernando Pimenta in the men’s K1 5000 (13:39).