The Portuguese Canoe Federation in partnership with NELO and the Montemor-o-Velho Council are pleased to bring you the 2012 edition of the PORTUGAL WINTER TRIAL - NELO WINTER CHALLENGE.

The Montemor-O-Velho High Performance center was recently completed late last year, and boasts state of the art facilities for sports like triathlon, rowing and canoeing. It meets all the standard Olympic requirements of a regatta course, and will be host to many major sporting events in the coming years. The most immediate being the European Canoe Sprint Juniors and Under 23 Championships in 2012, followed by the European Canoe Sprint Senior Championships in 2013, the ICF Canoe Sprint World Cup in 2014, and the ICF Canoe Sprint Juniors and Under 23 World Championships in 2015.

Thanks to a climate in Portugal that allows paddling all year round, it gives the PORTUGAL WINTER TRIAL-NELO WINTER CHALLENGE the honour of putting all the infrastructure and organization to a preliminary test in preparation for the big events to come. This event will see not only the Portuguese readiness to host these events, but also will give the World a chance to  see the Tegysport  starting systems in action. These Systems which are distributed by NELO, will be used in all the starts of this event and those to come in the future.

Apart from being a Test Event for the Worlds, the NELO WINTER CHALLENGE is also a good platform for coaches and athletes to benchmark their standards and progress in training, as they pit themselves against the world´s best in a 2000m time trial, and a 200m race on the next day.
Thanks to a partnership with the similar Regate internationale de Pas de Calais (www.aslcanoekayak.com) in Arras-Nord Pas de Calais, France during the last weekend of January, a mini Winter Series was created. This saw a lot of paddlers from France, Spain and Portugal racing their hearts out in both events, giving their best shot at the prizes- more than 7000 Euros worth of equipment.
This year, apart from our local favourites Teresa Portela and Fernando Pimenta, we are honored to have the confirmed participation of the

• Alfonso Benavides (Spain) , C1-200m Medalist at World Championships (2011)
• Anton Ryakhov (Russia), eight times World Championships medalist-three silvers (k1-200M;2002, k1-500M;2001,2006) and five bronzes (k1-200m;2001,2003,2005; K1-500m;2002, K2-1000m: 2010)
• Attila Vajda (Hungary) Two times C1-1000 medalist at Olympics- (1 Gold;2008, 1 Bronze;2004) and 5 times medalist at World Championships 2 Golds (C1-1000m;2007,2011) 2 Silvers (C1 relay;2009, C1-1000m;2010) 1 Bronze (C1-1000m; 2006)
• Ekaitz Saies (Spain), k1 -4 x 200m Relay world champion (2009)
• Marie Delattre (France), Beijing 2008 Bronze medalist in K2-500m and 2 times bronze medalist in World Championships for k2-500m (2005 and 2007)
• Mark de Jonge (Canada), k4 1000 Silver Medalist at the 2007 Pan American Games, and K1-500m Bronze medalist at the 2003 Pan American Games

Regate internationale de Pas de Calais 2012

Results

Interviews:

2012 Edition

All the info for the next edition of the NELO Winter Challenge on the Oficial bulletin

2011 Edition

Race results and more