Hey! Hey! I'm Anička Retková and I'm a wildwater canoeist.

I turned 18 this year, which means I'm still a junior in my last year. Well, but besides completing this important milestone, I managed to do something even more interesting this year. I managed to make it to the Czech national team in the sprint singles (single canoe) among adults. I was thus able to compete in our highest competition: the senior world championships. This year it was held in Augsburg, Germany, where there is a challenging artificial slalom course. It is common to train on slalom boats, so it was quite difficult for us downhillers to deal with the technical water here.

The championships in Augsburg were my first senior event. I have only competed in junior events so far, so it was a great experience for me to be able to compete against the world's top sprinters for the first time. Compared to the other athletes, I went more or less stress-free, because my most important races are still ahead of me (Junior World Championships, this July in Roudnice nad Labem!). So I safely made it from third place to the final. I had a flawless run, but I was still quite surprised myself. In the finals it was from scratch and all the competitors improved a lot. For me it was 7th position and maximum satisfaction.

We also competed in the C2 women category and with Alexandra Plachtova we finished in 5th place.

In the team race we came with Maria Nemcova and Zuzana Dziadkova for 2nd place. Unfortunately, the singles category was unofficial, so they didn't give us medals.

So now let's go to Roudnice to compete among juniors!