Hu Zhaoshan won the men’s single kayak final with a penalty-free run of 91.41 seconds.

On Wednesday, China won both titles on the first medal day of canoe slalom at the Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games. Hu Zhaoshan won the men’s single kayak final with a penalty-free run of 91.41 seconds, while Huang Juan retained her women’s single canoe title.

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Hu beat Japan’s Yuuki Tanaka by 1.46 seconds. Kazakhstan’s Alexandr Korobov took bronze in 94.48 seconds. Hu, who had ranked second in both the heats and semifinals, delivered his best result in the final to secure gold.

“I had a bit of trouble between gates 15 and 16 in the tricky middle section, but making mistakes isn’t the end of the world – you just have to do your best to make up for them and then focus on performing to the best of your ability,” Hu said.

Born in 2004, Hu won China’s national championship title in 2025 before taking silver at the National Games. He said that runner-up finish had prompted him to target a strong performance at the Asian Games. “Now that I’ve won gold here, I hope to prove myself at the Olympics,” he said.

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Huang Juan then retained her women’s single canoe title with a total time of 114.84 seconds, including a two-second penalty for touching a gate. Thailand’s Atcharaporn Duanglawa finished 11.01 seconds behind to claim silver, picking up four penalty seconds for touching two gates.

Kazakhstan’s Anastassiya Ananyeva recorded a faster paddling time than Duanglawa but incurred six penalty seconds, leaving her third in 127.32. Japan’s Aki Yazawa, the only paddler to complete the women’s final without penalties, finished fourth in 128.25, missing bronze by 0.93 seconds.

Huang, who won the title at the Hangzhou Asian Games and reached the semifinals at the 2024 Paris Olympics to record China’s best Olympic result in the event, said she had focused on improving her semifinal time. “I performed at the level I expected today,” she said. “My aim was to go a bit faster than in the semifinal, and I managed it.”

China’s canoe slalom team leader Zhang Peng described the Asian Games as a mid-term test in the squad’s preparations for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics. “Once you step down from the podium, everything starts from zero,” he said.

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Source: Xinhua

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