First day saw the 2 km time trial for all classes, in the main categories:

- K1 Men, Pimenta POR with a solid 7.40 took the win, in front of Ilya Medveded RUS (same 1 and 2 as last year) and Silva POR link results

- K1 Women, Beata Mikolaszik POL 8.48 ( silver medalist from London in K2 500) took the win in front of Vera Sobetova RUS and Antonija Nadj SRB

- C1 Men, Mathieu Goubel FRA took the win, in the closest race of all the open classes, by just 3 seconds to Leonid Tish RUS and 3rd was also from RUS Dmitry Petrov.

Many others came down the line some famous some or other less famous, but all got an idea of where they stand leading to their preparation for bigger races later this year.

The sun came out for 2nd day and the 200 mt were on, as expected the level was high, and pointless to name all the great Olympic and World Champions that lined up in the different classes.

K1 Men: Arnaud Hybois (double World Champion K2 200) took a close win in front of a strong spanish presence with Carlos Arevalo, Isaac Toro and Saul Craviotto that took the 2nd, 3th and 4th, all in less than 0.13!

K1 Women:  Natasa Douchev Janic does not require introductions she is a one of the best of all times, and she took one more win to her credit in Portugal in front of Sarah Guyot FRA and of the 18 year old Francisca Laia POR one of the good surprises of this first race of the year.

C1 Men: Andrii Kraitor RUS (European U23 champion) won in front of the great champion Maxim Opalev RUS and Alfonso Benavides ESP ( 4th C1 200 London 2012), in yet another close race.

The trademark of this race is the overall placing and for the 2nd time in a row it was Maxime Beaumont FRA ( 4th in London 2012 K1 200) that took the men’s crown, K1 Women a new winner Antonia Nadj SRB and C1 Men Dmitry Petrov RUS.

It was great to welcome all these paddlers in Portugal, and looking forward to the start of the season in May!

Full Results

From the Nelo point of view is very rewarding to see the dimension this race has reached, and that our cooperation with the Portuguese Canoe Federation has been able to help our sport and Portugal to be the center of the world of canoeing for 2 days.

In a technical note the renewed C1 Quattro XL took the win with Mathieu Goubel in the 2K and with Andrii Kraitor in the 200 mt, so a GREAT start for this model!

Having that in mind, we decided it was time to present a more performant boat for Paracanoe. As top paddlers in the sport has been now challenging the 40 seconds barrier we thought of developing a boat that allowed them to break that barrier.

Picking up from the main rules that ICF defined for the Paracanoe boat, we designed a boat that to stick to that rule book, end up resembling a lot an old school boat in shape. But that similarity allowed us to use the knowledge from former times into producing the fastest possible boat.

The K1 Paracanoe

In short:
1. A stable K2
2. Only 1,5 % slower than a standard Quattro
3. Available from the A1 to the E type class
4. Comes in 2 sizes M up to 150 Kg and L over 150 Kg
5.All parts and fittings are the standard Nelo parts, like used in the Quattro range

After a hard year in Singapore struggling with logisitcs we got it right this time and everything worked out, having all the tools and equipment we required.

As usual the week started with the Masters (not easy to understand why they must compete during the week and not the weekend before) it is great to see how competitive and exciting it became, we are happy to support and help them achieve their aims, that go from winning to just finishing.

The Juniors and U23 classes in Marathon are still used by many as a learning process and a way of complementing their sprint preparations, not meaning the level is not high that it is!

On to the weekend to the open classes and there Spain, Hungary, Portugal, Italy and SA took over and won most of the medals. On the bigger classes it was visible that a steep ramp and 2 90º turns during portages should not be the way forward, and yes there was a lot of boat damage coming out of that portage.

Stats were great with the Quattro Kayaks winning EVERY single GOLD medal in the Open classes (Renata Csay Quattro M; Ivan Alonso Quattro L; Csay/Farkasdi Quattro M and Merchan/Alonso Quattro XXL) also all the other medals were won by Nelo on 12 of 12 medals in Kayaks.

Full Results

Pics

As Nelo we were in our 3rd Games as Official Suppliers and once more we were committed into doing the best possible service, and making the athletes life as easy as possible. By having 75% of the boats competing we really felt there was no time for mistakes and got our “A Team” 4 weeks before the event reviewing and checking over 150 boats.

Dealing with the best paddlers in the World is our passion, we had only one member of our staff that has not been a competitive paddler himself, but even him shares the same passion. We care about their boats, their parts, and even created a small waiting lounge for them to relax while waiting for their equipment to be fine tuned.

Our commitment could not have been better compensated, by seeing those amazing paddlers trusting our work and focusing on their mission of doing in London the race of their lives, unfortunately not all achieved that, and there was joy but also disappointment, but from all we felt the recognition and care.

Result wise, the cold facts turned out to be an average of 6 boats in every final (8 boats total) and 25 medals in 36 possible meaning 70% of the medals! A number never achieved before by any boat builder.

We could not be more proud of our work, but in the end it is all about the paddlers their work and their effort day in day out, we are just happy to be a part of it.

To name the winners and every 25 medals would be a long boring duplication of all what canoeing fans have seen during last week, but once more we reinforce some of the facts:

1. 10 out of 12 medals in K1

2. Full final in K1 and K2 200 Men

3. Full podium in the K4 Men

4. Full podium in both 1000 and 200 K1 Men

5.First ever medal for Portuguese Canoeing (K2 1000 Silver) in Olympic Games, first ever Medal for South Africa Canoeing (K1 W 500)  in Olympic Games

6. 8 of 9 Kayak Gold medals

7.

8. David Cal became the best Spanish Olympian of all times collecting is 5th medal. (C1 1000)

9.

Check canoeicf.com for full results and videos of all these regattas.

The numbers are inspiring and from sunday we have started working for Rio 2016, improving where we can and reinforcing our strengths!

Special note also to our first gold in Slalom that spiced things up for us in that new challenge of being a reference in the Canoe Slalom as well as in the Canoe Sprint.

Now time to relax and welcome in Portugal the best Surf Ski paddlers in the World for the Nelo Summer Challenge 2012, while at the same time we will have the Meeting of Champions with many of the Canoe Sprint paddlers that helped us in the last few years coming over to Portugal to celebrate our successes!

In a race against time we fixed over 100 rudders, trying to avoid the drama of seeing a race result bring conditioned by weed.

In the end it turned out to be fair, but the ghost of the weed was there at all times.

Performance wise it is hard to make big judgments or predictions but as always we would mention some performances:

1. Max Hoff did it again, a full Olympic cycle winning the EC 4 straight golds! Amazing! Also impressive Rene Poulsen coming in a strong second, and the spanish 20 year old Cubelos, getting his first medal at the senior racing just one day after he got his spot for London confirmed.

2. Marko from Serbia also found out he got his Olympic spot just some days ago, and he celebrated in the best possible way by winning his first major title in front of Max Beaumont and Ed Mckeever.

3. Natasa Janic Douchev came back strong as ever to win the K1 200 and to back that up with a win in the K2 500 with Katalin Kovacs in what is their attempt for a 3rd straight gold in the K2 500 in OG.

4. Jon and Liam from GB took their 3rd consecutive European title in the K2 200 meaning every year since it became an Olympic event, 2nd Germany Rauhe/Ems taking their first big medal in the K2.

5. Dombi/Kokeny put up a great performance to take gold in the K2 1000, after being 3rd last year they stepped up their game leading into London.

6. K4 1000 - Denmark after a good set of races in the past, nailed a perfect run to win the EC, beating Romania and Serbia in the last section of the race.

7. Best stats ever in a EC with 8 gold medals and 26 medals in total from 36 possible in Olympic distances.

8. Over 150 boats served and prepared.

Now time to prepare the Olympic operation, but still time for the Jun and U23 in Montemor Portugal.

MADI has in its mission to dignify people with a mental handicap and provide them with a full citizenship. With more than 30 years of activity, MADI has been regarded as an example in working with these kids and integrating them socially.

Nelo offered a Viper 55 adapted for Paracanoeing to the Clube Fluvial Vilacondense, one of Vila do Conde’s canoeing clubs that has a very well regarded canoeing school.
The boat will be a the disposal of MADI to, with the help of the club’s coaches, initiate the kids in the canoeing world and make them athletes and, maybe, future champions!

The event took place on the boat’s new house, with representatives from all the entities and some of the future athletes that had the change of unpacking the specially decorated Viper.
Everyone was highly enthusiastic and can’t wait to begin paddling.

The weather did not help and the show was not great, hard for those that missed out, but hard for those that qualified as well, that had to deal with horrible conditions. Too easy to blame the conditions but that cannot take the merit away of those that managed to get their quotas.

For us a long week of work trying to ease out the pressure of the athletes and coaches during periods of so much stress, and doing what we do better making their boats feel right and fast!

After the last qualification race is finished, we can say 75% of the boats that qualifies for London 2012 were Nelo’s.

The World Cup was another story, conditions were really good, with a solid headwind but still pretty fair conditions.

One can feel the Olympics are around the corner with tough racing all over, specially when many teams using the World Cups as part of their selection.

Some small notes on the racing and how the “Nelo’s” did on the weekend:

1. K1 1000 – Rene Poulsen DEN took the win over a strong field with Eirik Larsen 2nd and Adam Van Koeverden in 3rd, full podium on one of the most expected races of the weekend.
2. K2 1000 – Even missing out on the Gold (Germany) the Iberians Spain and Portugal took the rest of the podium spots, on a friendly competition that will have more interesting battles in the future.
3. K4 1000 – Czech produced one of the surprises of the weekend beating Germany in the last 5 meters to claim Gold with Denmark in 3rd.
4. C1 1000 – Mark Oldershaw started his season as he finished it: winning! Solid and confident performance.
5. K4 W 500 – On a race won by Germany, Russia and Portugal closed the podium, on a race where it is expected to have 8 Nelo’s in the 10 boats that will compete in London.
6. K1 200 – Ed Mckeever won again in Poznan for the 3rd year in a row! Beating to the line 2 new players in the K1 200 Saul Craviotto from Spain and Maxim Molochkov from Russia, making 3 out of 3 for Nelo.
7. K2 200 – France produced one more impressive performance, with double World Champions coming back on the field after a bad start, just to beat Great Britain and the surprisingly fast Canadians!
8. K1 W 200 – Marta Walczykiewicz from Poland confirmed her status as one of the strongest contenders for Gold in London, putting out a solid performance to claim Gold.
9. In total 7 of 12 golds, with 21 in total, more than double of the second boat builder, still expecting better for London but already an improvement from 2008.

Now off to Duisburg to the second leg of the World Cup setting up today and starting service from tomorrow morning.

The Classic concept came from the need to fill the gap between the more stable racing K1s (Vintage) and the fitness boats (Vipers).

The Classic became very popular to former paddlers that still want to have a K1 but can no longer enjoy paddling a racing K1 and don’t wish to paddle a fitness boat, but also to the late starters into the sport that can do a smoother passage from the fitness boats into the racing boats.

The 2012 Classic has as improvements:
- New Quattro look
- “one piece” construction
- Slimmer rim for more comfort in the hip area
- Decrease in volume in the back, decreasing drag and improving performance
- Volume added in the feet area to keep same level of stability and balance of the trim.

The K1 Quattro Classic

Recognising that the Vintage is one of the key models of our range being used by people of all ages and levels, we decided to upgrade its design and shape to join the Quattro family.

Following its facelift the boat not only has a better glide and stability, but also better durability and reduced weights across the entire range of constructions available, thanks to the one piece construction.

Discover the Vintage Quattro