The World Champs of Para-Rafting are over: the RX discipline decided the first Overall Champions in history.

Iarysh Denis, Potanin Viktor (RUS), Salvatore Cutaia (ITA) and Igor Bondar (UKR) confirmed the 1st place in the Amputee category: the 120 points of RX gold guaranteed to them the Overall victory in the final against the Italians Giandinoto Massimo, Montagna Marco, Novella Riccardo and Sperandini Rosario (1.30-1.32.77 seconds).

The Open Category's RX final B was taken by Plotnikov Dmitry (RUS), Pavlovic Andjela, Ivanovic Marina (SRB) and Bedokurov Gled (UKR) (Bronze Overall). The final A confirmed the Overall results: gold for Romanenko Oleg, Konovalov Denis, Galdin Andrei (RUS) and Chemeris Yuriy (UKR); silver for Burakov Eduard (RUS), Ivanovic Marco, Ilic Milos (SRB) and Markovsky Illy (UKR).

Giandinoto Massimo, Sperandini Rosario (ITA), Konovalov Denis and Galdin Andrei (RUS) are the Overall Champions of the Mix category, winning the 3 different disciplines. The only two girls of the competition (Pavlovic Andjela and Ivanovic Marina) are on the second step of the podium (RX and Overall) with Iarysh Denis and Potanin Viktor (RUS). The RX bronze confirmed the Overall 3rd place for Novella Riccardo, Montagna Marco (ITA), Ivanovic Marco and Ilic Milos (SRB) who won the final B against Salvatore Cutaia (ITA), Igor Bondar, Markovsky Illy and Bedokurov Gleb (UKR).

Most of the athletes are competitors in other sports.

"My left foot has been amputated when I was 9" explains Massimo Giandinoto (winner of the Mix Category) "and since then I have been considering every day of my life as a challenge. At 26 years old I started running and filling my days with sport (He is a 100m and 200m athlete). 3, then 4, then 5 days a week until, training every day, I won the Italian title of 60m and 200m dashes. I first tried Rafting for fun but then the same happened: wearing the National flag is a dream come true; doing it with a team is something unique, paddling together literally in the same boat is priceless."

"And it is only the beginning" declares the WRF President Danilo Barmaz "These athletes are THE example of what "Always moving forward" means. A warm thanks to every person who paddled on Dnieper river and has been a part of this historic race, directed by the judges Mr Vladmir Petukhov from Russia and the WRF Vice-President Boris Purjakov".

It is definitely the beginning for the deaf team from Serbia: Andjela Pavlovic writes "Last July we first paddled in a river, we trained for 2 months and competed in Zubin Potok at the World Cup and we are happy about the results here. We are a volleyball team and we often participate in international tournment: now we train out of the water focusing on a match in Poland on 26 October, but we are looking forward to see what Rafting will show us."

For the first time in Rafting history Para-athletes are ready to compete at the World Championship next weekend. 

Tomorrow, one year after the test event in Ukraine, rafters from Armenia, Italy, Kazakhstan, Ukraine and Russia will fly to Kiev and paddle the WRF disciplines on the Dnieper river: Downriver, Slalom and RX . 

The WRF Para-Rafting Worlds begins on Dnieper on Friday, October 11.

“The crews must be numerically composed of 4 athletes” told Oleksandr Bakanychev, President of the WRF Para-Rafting Commission, “in the R4 LTA (LTA means Amputee, Class 3: legs, torso, arms can work) the team must be composed of 4 LTA Amputee Athletes, whereas in the R4 OC category the crew must be composed of 2 disabled athletes and 2 able-bodied athletes”.

OC means “Open category” and the eligible Impairments: 

•Visual Impairment Class B3

•Hearing Impairment (Deaf athletes)

•Down Syndrome

Slalom day!

8 gates in the center of Kiev selected the first Slalom Para-Rafting World Champions this afternoon. 12 teams paddled through 8 downstream and 4 upstream gates for two manches in Dnieper river.

Precious seconds depended on penalties arising from the red upstream gates: no team missed any gate (that would add a 50 seconds penalty) but the 5 seconds penality concerning the touch of a gate changed some positions in the provisional general results.

100 points to Italy, Russia-Kazakhstan and Russia-Serbia who took the gold in the three Paralympic categories:

Tomorrow is the last race day and the teams will paddle for the last 120 points that will determinate the first Over-All Para-Rafting World Champions.

24 teams took part to the WRF Senior World Cup in Serbia (Zubin Potok) the first weekend of September.

On Saturday morning Italy (65.23 sec), Croatia (68.67 sec) and Bulgaria (69.80 sec) dominated the men sprint going straight to the RX quarter finals, but during the knock out phase of RX the provisional podium changed: Bulgaria took the gold in the final against Italy, while the bronze medal went to Croatia.

The women podium saw Italy in the first and second positions (that scored 120 and 108 points), while the third place was conquered by Bulgaria (96 points).

Out of the 7 mix teams the podium of the mix category has been taken by 3 Italian teams.

On Saturday evening the semi artificial channel enlightened the 2 manches of Slalom: in the men category Italy won with 1 penality (186,96 sec), second place for Bulgaria with no touches (214,19 sec) and Croatia with 1 touch of a red gate (223,67 sec) confirmed the bronze.

In the women category Italy took the first 2 places on the podium with 5 seconds penality per team (232,08 sec and 238,75 sec) and Bulgaria (with 60 seconds penality) closed the podium.

On Sunday morning the downriver started in the upper part of the Ibar river and saw the teams paddling for 5 Kms through forks before islands and small rapids.

Downriver brought Italy with 20.50.73 sec, Croatia with 21.19.98 sec and Italy 2 with 21.34.63 sec to the men’s podium. The women podium saw Italy in the first 2 positions (21.36.17 sec and 22.06.21 sec) and Bulgaria with 23.26.58 sec on the third step.

During the medal ceremony, in the Sport Centre of Zubin Potok, local authorities, Boris Purjakov (President of the Serbian Rafting Federation) and Danilo Barmaz (WRF President) rewarded the podiums with discipline’s cups and overall medals.

In the final ranking 288 points guaranteed the men’s gold to Italy, followed by the RX winner Bulgaria (270 points) and Croatia with (248 points)

The 2 Italian women teams took the final gold and silver medals, bronze to the young team from Bulgaria.

For the first time in Rafting history Para-athletes are competing in a worldwide Rafting Championships.

Today rafters from 5 countries opened the event in Kiev with the Downriver, divided in 3 categories: R4 LTA (Amputee, Class 3: legs, torso, arms can work), Open Category (Visual Impairment Class B3, Hearing Impairment - Deaf athletes and Down Syndrome) and the Mix Category that combine different disabilities to challenge the Dnieper river from a new perspective.

The fastest raft stopped the Downriver chronometer winning the Amputee Category: Viktor Potanin (Rus), Denis Iaris (Rus), Igor Shovkievski (Ukr) and Salvatore Cutaia (Ita).

With 11.08.52 seconds they had almost a minute of advantage on the Amputee Silver: the Italian team of Massimo Giandinoto, Marco Montagna, Riccardo Novella and Rosario Sperandini (12.01.29 seconds: second best time of the day).

Three Paralympic rafters and one normo athlete formed every team of the Open Category: 13.49.85 seconds took Denis Konovalov, Andrey Galdin, Oleg Romanenka (from Russia) and Egoro Baranov (from Kazakhstan) to the first step of the Category podium.

For Andjela Pavlovic and Marina Ivanovic Kiev is the second World Rafting competition: the deaf team from Serbia competed for the first time in Kosovo one month ago at the World Cup; but in Zubin Potok they paddled in the only Para-Rafting team present. Now they are only two girls participating in Kiev and this morning, with Viktor Potanin and Denis Iaris from Russia, they took the deserved gold of the Mix Category (12.29.35 seconds).

It is no more a dream, but rather a real project, a new great adventure for our Rafting World and today was only the beginning.

Tomorrow the 9 teams will paddle through the gates: stay tuned for the Slalom!

First day of the WRF Senior World Cup in Zubin Potok: teams from Serbia, Croatia, Italy and Bulgaria arrived this morning in the North Kosovo, in the Mitrovica district, ready for the first day of training.

Teams are hosted on the beautiful Gazivoda lake, near Ibar river.

At 3.00 pm official training will start - stay tuned on our social pages for more!

Be young Be water is a worldwide rafting training camp organized thanks the collaboration between F.I.Raft, W.R.F. and the Italian Society CVA (Compagnia Valdostana delle Acque SPA).

From 28th July to 4th August 2019 Villeneuve (Aosta Valley, in the middle of the Western Alps), will host a Training Camp focused on young athletes (under 19, from 15 to 19 years) who will alternate river activities in the whitewater of Dora Baltea (management technique, operational safety exercises in the river, teamwork, sports leadership, operating methods and methodological exchanges between coaches of different countries for environmental education and water protection lessons,…) with trekking in the nature of the lateral valleys as well as visiting the Villeneuve hydroelectric power station and the main attractions of Aosta Valley (Bard Fortress and the Castles).

The number of places available is limited: 2 rafters per Nation, together with one coach, will be selected and registered by the National Federations and receive free room and board for a week near the 3rd/4th level river Dora Baltea, including the section that hosted the World Champs of the last year in the same period of flood.