The final day at the 2016 ICF Canoe Slalom World Cup Final in Ljubljana, Slovenia, turned out to be a good one for Team USA.
Two U.S. athletes finished in the top 10 and one of them walked away with a medal.
Three-time Olympian Casey Eichfeld (Drums, PA) has stayed at the top of the Men’s C1 category due to his years of sustained speed and skill, and today (the final day of the Canoe Slalom World Cups held September 9 – 11) Eichfeld finally broke through and won his first medal at a major international race.
After laying down a blazing run semifinal run to finish in 1st place, Eichfeld looked to be ready to do something special in the finals. Calm and composed, Eichfeld put together another spectacular run to finish 3rd, 2.45 seconds behind winner Benjamin Savsek (SLO) and 1.81 seconds behind 2nd place finisher Alexander Slafkovsky (SVK). Eichfeld’s bronze is his first career World Cup medal and the first individual World Cup medal in C1 by an American in over a decade.
In the Men’s K1 semifinals, 2016 Olympian Michal Smolen (Gastonia, NC) picked up where he left off yesterday, finishing in 3rd place. Coming into the final, Smolen looked poised to post another top result. Pushing hard throughout, Smolen made a strong push to finish 9th overall. Winning the event was 2016 Olympic silver medalist Peter Kauzer (SLO) with Bradley Forbes-Cryans in 2nd and Kazuya Adachi (JPN) finishing 3rd. This is Smolen’s second top-10 World Cup finish this season.
Visit the ICF website for more information and full results!