The Portuguese canoeist Messias Baptista was crowned European champion of K1 200 meters today, in the competition integrated into the Krakow 2023 European Games, succeeding his compatriot Kevin Santos, and won the third medal of the Portuguese mission.
The 24-year-old Olympic canoeist completed the distance in 36.845 seconds, beating all the competition, with Sweden’s Petter Menning in silver, 0.334 seconds, and Latvia’s Roberts Akmens in bronze, 0.344, clinching Portugal’s first gold medal in Krakow 2023 .
The Tokyo 2020 Olympic athlete won a silver medal at the 2021 World Cup, in Copenhagen, in the mixed K2 200, with Francisca Laia, and was eighth in the K4 500-meter Olympic Games, now succeeding Kevin Santos, who was the current European champion, prevented from defending the title due to time constraints with other competitions in which he is registered.
This is Portugal’s third medal in these III European Games Krakow 2023, and the first gold, after Francisca Laia won bronze minutes before, also in K1 200 meters, and one day after Ana Cruz was third in kata, a discipline of karate.
The Kraków2023 European Games will take place until July 2 in Krakow and in the Polish region of Malopolska, with 30 sports on the program and 48 participating countries, including Portugal, which has a delegation of more than two hundred athletes.
Source: TSF
