24 teams took part to the WRF Senior World Cup in Serbia (Zubin Potok) the first weekend of September.
On Saturday morning Italy (65.23 sec), Croatia (68.67 sec) and Bulgaria (69.80 sec) dominated the men sprint going straight to the RX quarter finals, but during the knock out phase of RX the provisional podium changed: Bulgaria took the gold in the final against Italy, while the bronze medal went to Croatia.
The women podium saw Italy in the first and second positions (that scored 120 and 108 points), while the third place was conquered by Bulgaria (96 points).
Out of the 7 mix teams the podium of the mix category has been taken by 3 Italian teams.
On Saturday evening the semi artificial channel enlightened the 2 manches of Slalom: in the men category Italy won with 1 penality (186,96 sec), second place for Bulgaria with no touches (214,19 sec) and Croatia with 1 touch of a red gate (223,67 sec) confirmed the bronze.
In the women category Italy took the first 2 places on the podium with 5 seconds penality per team (232,08 sec and 238,75 sec) and Bulgaria (with 60 seconds penality) closed the podium.
On Sunday morning the downriver started in the upper part of the Ibar river and saw the teams paddling for 5 Kms through forks before islands and small rapids.
Downriver brought Italy with 20.50.73 sec, Croatia with 21.19.98 sec and Italy 2 with 21.34.63 sec to the men’s podium. The women podium saw Italy in the first 2 positions (21.36.17 sec and 22.06.21 sec) and Bulgaria with 23.26.58 sec on the third step.
During the medal ceremony, in the Sport Centre of Zubin Potok, local authorities, Boris Purjakov (President of the Serbian Rafting Federation) and Danilo Barmaz (WRF President) rewarded the podiums with discipline’s cups and overall medals.
In the final ranking 288 points guaranteed the men’s gold to Italy, followed by the RX winner Bulgaria (270 points) and Croatia with (248 points)
The 2 Italian women teams took the final gold and silver medals, bronze to the young team from Bulgaria.
