Canoeist Hartley picks up bronze double in Prague

Canoeist Bridgitte Hartley added a bronze medal in the women’s 26.2km marathon in the Czech Republic on Sunday to the bronze she won over the short course on Saturday.

In what turned out to be a carbon copy of the short course results, Hartley shared the podium with Hungarian race winner Vanda Kiszli and Danish runner-up Pernille Kluijers Holstrup.

“It was tough today with challenging weather conditions for the long marathon race,” said Hartley. “At the start of the race the wind came up and then it poured with rain.”

Hartley was once again central to the front bunch of women until a mistake at one of the portages saw her lose contact with the race leaders.

“It was a rookie error,” she said. “I was put in a really bad place and so had to wait while the group got away and I was left in no-man’s-land. That is always tough and I suppose it is character building,” she said. “It gives me something to work on as I look forward to the rest of the season ahead.”

Meanwhile, the bad weather that has dogged the ICF Sprint World Cup in Poland meant that Esti van Tonder and Chrisjan Coetzee never got to race their finals as the truncated programme on the final day led to all but the A finals being cancelled.

Senior women K1 26.2km marathon.

1  V Kiszli (HUN) 2:06:12

2 P Hostrup (DEN) 2:07:14

3 B Hartley (SA) 2:09:41

4 A Winther (DEN) 2:11:25

5 C Hepp (AUT) 2:11:42

Senior men K1 29,8km marathon.

1 M Pedersen (DEN) 2:07:51

2 J Ramalho (POR) 2:09:52

3 N Thomsen (DEN) 2:10:43

4 P Knudsen 2:11:12

5 S Boulanger (FRA) 2:12:02