Fernando Pimenta forced to surrender and Portugal lost – fifth in the world

On Sunday, Portugal won another medal at the World Rowing World Cup in Halifax, from which the team left with four podiums, regretting the dragging Fernando Pimenta in the K1 5,000 metres.

In some World Cups in which all Portuguese athletes were in the “top ten” in Canada, Fernando Pimenta won three medals and experienced a fourth escape from him, when he had to pull out in the K1 5,000m, due to a malfunction while driving the test.

The two-time Olympic medalist was, once again, a beacon to a team full of great athletes, as evidenced by the world’s hard-to-match performances in Portugal’s high-performance sport.

Canoe Limiano won silver in the K1 1000m and K2500 mixed with Teresa Portella, in a medal he took today, as well as a bronze in the K1 500m. In the last race of the competition, he drove the K1 5000, however, entering the water from the first drawing (track on land, running with kayak in hand), realizing that his rudder had clearly broken and strained, he was forced to surrender.

Moments ago, he had taken advantage of the confusion behind him to open a gap in the group, so the top three already had a good gap for the rest of the group.

The K2500m race also featured João Ribeiro and Messias Baptista, with the ‘Top 5’, however, to the dismay of the Portuguese duo, who was leading in the middle of the race and believed to have value for more, even if in a crew training in the scoring type Part-time.

The priority of João e Messias, in addition to the Federation, is to qualify for Paris 2024 with as many athletes as possible, hence the priority for the K4 500, which includes these two athletes as well as Emmanuel Silva and David Varela.

In the growing World Cup Finals, and with Joao Ribeiro debuting as the captain’s voice, he missed the playoffs, improved in the semi-finals and in the medal races to their best performance, finishing seventh more than in the 2023 worlds would qualify for the Olympics.

Teresa Portela made up for her frustration with losing the Olympic K1 500m final by one place with sixth in the K1200 and, above all, silver with Pimenta on her K2500 mixed debut.

Kevin Santos, who is looking to enter the K4 500, a goal he has not achieved this season but will insist on next, was sixth in the K1200 metres, up from ninth in 2021.

In Paracanoeing, it was Norberto Mourao who repeated bronze in VL2 – a result he also won at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games – while teammate Alex Santos finished fifth in KL1.

Portugal ranked 15th in the World Championships in the world medal table, while it ranked 13th in the World Paracano Championships, on a par with New Zealand and Uzbekistan.

Portugal’s full results at the World Boating Championships:

– 200 meters:

K1 Teresa Portela – sixth.

K1 Kevin Santos – sixth.

– 500 meters:

K1 Fernando Pimenta – bronze.

K1 Teresa Portella – 10th place.

K2 Joao Ribeiro / Messias Baptista – 5th place.

Mixed K2 Fernando Pimenta / Teresa Portella – silver.

K4 Joao Ribeiro / Messias Baptista / Emmanuel Silva / David Varela – seventh.

– 1000 meters

K1 Fernando Pimenta – silver medal.

– 5000 meters:

K1 Fernando Pimenta – pulled back (broken rudder).

Parakanui:

– 200 meters:

VL2 Norberto Mourau – bronze.

KL1 Alex Santos – 5th place.