Vogt gets another medal, Uli is all heart

GUALEGUAYCHU (Argentina) – Team South Africa picked up two more medals on Day 4 of the 2026 Canoe Marathon World Championships in Gualeguaychú, Argentina, on Saturday, but neither came as hoped or expected.

Schoolboy Keegan Vogt added a junior long-course silver to the short-course gold he won on Friday, and Uli Hart produced a brave paddle before losing out to Mads Pedersen in the final sprint as the Dane secured his fourth senior world title in a row.

And, in one of the early K2 races on Sunday, Georgia Singe and Jade Wilson, former junior and U23 medallists respectively, collected South Africa’s sixth medal of the championship when they finished third in the senior women’s K2 race.

Singe and Wilson’s bronze added to the two golds from Vogt and Lovemore in the short-course K1 on Friday; Vogt and Hart’s silvers in the junior and senior long-course events on Saturday; and Singe’s bronze in the U23 women’s long-course race late on Friday.

After their Day 3 heroics, Vogt and Lovemore were heavily favoured to double their golden tally on Day 4, but neither was able to repeat their heroics from the previous day with Lovemore suprisingly fading out of the senior lead group early and finishing 9th.

In the junior race, Vogt was sure of a medal as a three-man group approached the final portage. On the run the Hungarian Kevin Budai slipped away and settled for bronze, while Italian Leonardo Candela was crucially able to get just ahead of the South African at the put-in. In the final short paddle to the finish, Vogt tried to get over the leader’s bow wave and get his nose in front, but the Italian was clearly stronger and a deserved winner.

In the final race of the day, the Lovemore vs Pedersen clash was expected to be the race of the championships in the Blue-Riband event, the senior K1. Surprisingly both struggled on the early laps and Lovemore faded away from a big front group on lap four out of eight. A lap later the entire group broke up and it looked like the three medalists were settled with Pedersen beginning to gain control, even though Hart and Argentinian home-crowd favourite, Fanco Balboa, shared the work as the trio pulled away from all the opposition.

But then drama that incensed the vocal home-crowd saw Balboa pulled off the course at the end of lap seven. He was disqualified for causing the capsize of Norwegian Amund Vold earlier in the race. Hart and Pedersen then calmly worked together to build a gap on the chasers.

Hart bravely hung on to the Dane and did his share of the work, but never realistically looked likely to stop him winning his sixth title in seven years and Hart settled for second and a well-earned silver.

In other races, Bella Stallard and Sydney Williams were part of the lead group coming into the penultimate turn of the junior K2 race, but were worked off the group and had to settle for a frustrating fourth; Bridgitte Hartley and Jade Wilson were 10th and 11th in the senior women’s K1.