Egan bags gold at ICF Masters World C’ships
By Hayden Moore
BATTLING his way through a tough pool of competitors, Peter Egan raced his way to the top of the podium to be named ICF Masters World Champion in the Chinese town of Shaoxing earlier this week/
Competing in the K1 Men 40-44 age category, the Lucan canoer dashed over 19km to clock a time of 1:25:04.87 – beating current European Masters Champion, Jesus Rodriguez by just over nine seconds.
Peter Egan celebrates his gold medal win in China last Monday (Photo by Carolyn Cooper)
Thrilled to capture gold on the world stage, the Salmon Leap canoer told The Echo: “It’s brilliant to win it. I’m over the moon. It was a really tough battle.
“I struggled in the Europeans with the heat but the climate here suited me better. It was a lot cooler and there was a small wind on the lake.”
Egan previously raced to a bronze medal at the European Masters Canoeing Championships over in France back in July, where there was 36-degree heat on the lake with little to no breeze.
Rodriguez captured the title on that occasion and it was those two who locked horns on the final lap in Shaoxing on Monday but the cooler climate with a light breeze suited the Egan more so.
Over19km, the track that Egan battled through consisted of five laps, four portages and one small lap to finish it out.
With more than two minutes between second-placed Spanish-native Rodriguez and third-placed Uruguayan Jorge Ferrier, it was a dog fight for the top two on the final straight.
But Egan got the better of Rodriguez to claim the gold medal, after just missing out on a podium finish in the same event last year.
Upon finishing, Peter was congratulated by his parents and his sister Jenny Egan, who is an Olympic Games hopeful.
Peter has enjoyed a successful year already, having also captured the Men’s K1 title for the very first time at the 60th Liffey Descent.
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