Maltese duo for sprint championships

Christopher Camilleri and Matthew Schembri are currently taking part in a training camp organised by the International Canoe Federation in Dunavar-sany, Hungary.

The camp is headed by Csaba Huttner with Tibor Virag supervising the men’s kayak teams. On Tuesday, the group will travel to the ICF Canoe Sprint World Championships in Szeged.

The ICF races count as one of the qualifying events for next year’s Olympic Games in London with the distances covering 200m and 1,000m in the men’s category and 200m and 500m in women’s competitions.

Camilleri will be competing in the fast-paced 200m sprint in a K1 and Schembri, who is making his kayaking debut in this world competition, is going for the more technical 500m sprint, also in a K1.

The duo will then team up in a K2 for the 200m sprint in what will be Malta’s first entry with a team boat in these competitions.

Camilleri and Schembri re-cently competed in Sicily where they claimed third place in the 1,000m race in a K2.

On that occasion, they were accompanied by Nicola Borg Cos-tanzi who came first in the K1, also in the 1,000m distance.

In Szeged, Camilleri and Schembri will again be accompanied by Borg Costanzi. She will be acting as team leader.

The coach is Kata Pongracz.