Portugal’s Paddle Icon Pimenta Repeats as Canoe Marathon World Champ

An afternoon on the water in northern Germany has placed Portugal’s most decorated paddler back on the top step of an event he adopted barely three seasons ago, reaffirming to anyone watching that the Iberian nation can still produce world-class results far away from the football pitch.

A familiar medal, a different kind of race

Anyone living in Portugal long enough will have heard Fernando Pimenta’s name shouted from café televisions during Olympic summers. The 35-year-old from Ponte de Lima normally trades in speed, hurtling down 1,000-metre sprint courses. Yet this week he pulled on a different bib and defended his short-course marathon crown, a demanding 3.4 km lap-dash punctuated by two compulsory portages where athletes jump out, sprint along a floating pontoon with boat in hand, and relaunch. The format lasts barely 14 minutes but taxes both stamina and race craft; miss a single wash ride and the medal is gone.

Pimenta handled the chaos with trademark poise, surging clear in the final 200 m of flat water to beat Denmark’s Mads Pedersen and South Africa’s Andy Birkett. The victory delivers his second consecutive world title in the discipline and his ninth senior world gold overall, counting both marathon and sprint. Speaking moments after docking, he dedicated the win to “todos os portugueses, em casa e espalhados pelo mundo,” a nod to the diaspora as well as to the tourists lining the banks of Brandenburg’s Beetzsee regatta course.

Why marathon success matters for a sprinter

For newcomers to canoe-sport jargon, marathon and sprint look like cousins who grew up in different households. Sprint, the Olympic version most viewers recognise, unfolds in perfectly buoy-lined lanes over 200 m, 500 m or 1,000 m. Marathon events, by contrast, send athletes weaving around natural bends, often sharing water with swans, and include obligatory portagens that feel closer to cyclo-cross than to rowing.

Pimenta’s ability to jump codes has become a case study in Portuguese high-performance planning: use marathon racing to extend aerobic capacity without the repetitive strain of year-round sprint intervals. His long-time coach Hélio Lucas says the switch also “keeps the training week interesting” for an athlete who has been ticking the same kilometres for more than a decade. Results support the theory; since debuting in marathon in 2022, Pimenta’s sprint times have remained among the world’s best, and earlier this summer he pocketed double European gold in the K1 1,000 m and K1 5,000 m in Račice.

The money question expats keep asking

Victory speeches rarely mention bank balances, but funding shadows every Portuguese medal. Pimenta benefits from Benfica’s “Projeto Olímpico” stipend and a level of state support through the Instituto Português do Desporto e Juventude that most local clubs can only envy. Yet when compared with Hungary’s multi-sponsor ecosystem or Germany’s publicly backed scholarship scheme, Portugal still relies on heroic performances to unlock fresh euros.

That gap is obvious around the boat park. Hungarian paddlers arrive with custom Mercedes vans, German crews unpack ERIMA-branded kit, while the Portuguese squad makes do with federation trailers that double as storage for regional regattas back home. Pimenta is too diplomatic to complain outright, but he has previously warned that many national-team hopefuls must “train like pros but live like volunteers.” His new gold medal will likely reignite debate in Lisbon about whether success on the water deserves a larger slice of the sports-budget pie.

A win that resonates beyond the podium

For foreigners settled in Portugal, watching a local athlete dominate a niche yet globally competitive sport offers a window into the country’s quiet ambition. While football monopolises headlines, disciplines such as canoeing, surfing and track cycling have produced a disproportionate number of world champions for a nation of 10 M people. Pimenta’s result underscores that geography – rivers that criss-cross the Minho and Northern interior – is being converted into elite opportunity.

The achievement also matters symbolically in regions favoured by expats. Ponte de Lima, his hometown, sits along the ecologically rich Lima River and forms part of the Camino Portugués pilgrimage route. Local officials expect the fresh title to boost the municipality’s bid to host more international paddling events, something property owners and hospitality businesses – many run by foreign residents – will surely welcome.

What happens next – and why Los Angeles 2028 is already on the horizon

The calendar does not pause for celebration. In 11 months Győr, Hungary, will stage the 2025 marathon worlds, a venue famed for boisterous home crowds and, in the words of one Hungarian journalist, “wind channels that make the Beetzsee feel like a swimming pool.” Pimenta has confirmed he will defend his title there before pivoting fully to sprint qualification for Paris 2026 European Championships and ultimately the Los Angeles Olympic Games in 2028, where he still chases the elusive gold after claiming silver in London 2012 and bronze in Tokyo 2021.

Whether you are a newly arrived digital nomad in Lisbon or a long-timer renovating a farmhouse in the Alentejo, expect Pimenta’s journey to feature regularly on Portuguese nightly news. The story blends national pride, the rugged beauty of the country’s waterways, and a reminder that top-tier excellence can flourish even amid budget constraints. For now, the paddle returns to its rack, but the ripple effect of another world crown is already spreading well beyond the course’s final buoy.