Once every four years, twenty countries send their fastest marathon kayaker to battle for the World Games title. It’s the Olympics of non-Olympic sports. Chengdu 2025 is only the second regular edition of marathon kayaking at the World Games, and the athletes and countries are taking it more seriously than ever. Hamish Lovemore, who competed for South Africa in sprint kayak at the Paris Olympics, said the World Games is his main marathon event of the year.

James “Jimbo” Russell, the reigning European Champion in marathon from Great Britain, described just how competitive the men’s field looks: “You could look at any one of those names and think they could be a potential medalist”.

At the 2022 World Games in Birmingham Alabama, it was Andy Birkett (South Africa) and Vanda Kiszli (Hungary) who took home gold medals. Hamish Lovemore beat Andy Birkett in their national trials to earn this year’s spot for South Africa, but marathon legend Vanda Kiszli will be back to defend her title. Kiszli also won the women’s short course race so has two titles to defend, and Mads Brandt Pedersen (Denmark) will return to defend his short course title and fight hard for the marathon (long course) title. In 2022, Pedersen just barely lost out to Birkett in a race for the ages.

Top Contenders: Men’s Race

In the men’s race, the field is so tight at the top that naming a top three is splitting hairs. But there are three paddlers who may be a narrow cut above the rest: Hamish, Jimbo, and Mads.

Hamish Lovemore has been at the sharp end of marathon racing for a while, but 2025 has been a break-out season for him in sprint. At the Szeged Sprint World Cup this spring, Hamish took a silver medal in the 1000m race only 0.17 of a second behind Olympic medalist Balint Kopasz. His blazing time of 3:29.82 also placed him ahead of a field chock full of Olympic medalists and A finalists. Coming off the 25 year old’s first Olympics in Paris, it’s an incredibly exciting result at the beginning of the new Olympic cycle. But will his success in sprint translate to success in the marathon? He’ll have the fastest top speed of the field, but how that translates to his marathon cruise pace and how well he can navigate tactically against the best in the world remains to be seen.

James Russell is having a break-out season himself after his gold and silver medals in the long and short course at European Marathon Champs in June. A tactics-first paddler who describes his advantage as being comfortable in a big group, Jimbo managed to beat longtime marathon top-enders Jose Ramalho and Jon Amund Vold in an impressive sprint finish. Although Jimbo has some impressive international results in sprint as well, he has been primarily focused on marathon paddling which Paddlecast co-host Billy Butler thinks could give him the edge.

Mads Pedersen is not only a multiple world champion, he’s won the last two marathons by two and a half minutes. Since 2019, the only world championship marathon title Mads lost was in 2022 to Andy Birkett: he finished in 3rd place, less than two seconds behind Birkett and 0.3 seconds behind Portuguese Jose Ramalho. As dominant as he’s been for the last few years though, Mads chose not to race at the European Marathon Championships early this year as he was focusing on sprint. So he hasn’t faced off against a field like this one since the World Championships in Croatia last September.

But with a top quality field on the line, the podium is far from a sure bet for these top three, and they’re well aware of who to look out for. Speaking with Paddlecast, Hamish and Jimbo both listed almost half the athletes as their biggest competition. Nico Paufler (Germany), Ivan Alonso (Spain), and Jose Ramalho (Portugal) are returning to defend their podium spots from 2022. Jon Amund Vold (Denmark) who just took bronze at European Championships will be fighting for a podium spot. It wouldn’t be surprising to see any of these guys sneak onto the podium, either in the marathon or in the short course.

Top Contenders: Women’s Race

Vanda Kiszli has won every world championship marathon since 2018, except for one: 2024. Last year, Melina Andersson of Sweden out-sprinted her in the final moments of the race to a shocked commentary team. Did Andersson’s win mark the end of an era?

When Andersson had to pull out of the European Championships at the last minute due to illness, the hopes of fans excited to see the next Kiszli-Andersson showdown were crushed. But the disappointment was short-lived. Norwegian Anna Sletsjoe stepped up to bring the action. Sletsjoe hung with Kiszli right to the end before putting in a sprint finish, and managed to just edge out Vanda Kiszli in an unexpected repeat of 2024 Worlds. Unfortunately Norway did not qualify a spot for the World Games, so fans will have to wait a few more weeks until Marathon World Champs in early September to get the three-way showdown.

This weekend in China will finally see the Andersson and Kiszli face-off for the first time since their thrilling 2024 World Championship battle.

Melina brings top level sprint skills to the battle. Fresh from representing Sweden at the Paris Olympics, she had several stand-out performances in 2023 and 2024, collecting five medals between the European and World Championships in sprint. At the Szeged World Cup earlier this year, she finished 8th in the 500m, won the 5km race, and only missed out on bronze in the 1000m by 0.14. At the European Sprint Championships a few weeks ago, it was silver in the 1000m and bronze in the 5km for the Swede. Her sprint speed seemed to be what gave her the win over Kiszli at the end of last year’s showdown in Croatia, but will she be able to repeat the same in China this weekend?

Vanda Kiszli is such a tenured vet of marathon wins, that it just feels hard to bet against her. On Paddlecast, co-host Billy Butler wondered if Kiszli’s loss to Melina Andersson at Worlds and recent loss (in another sprint finish) to Norwegian Anna Sletsjoe might give Kiszli an extra boost to fight for the win at World Games. A racer who likes to lead from the front, will Kiszli switch up her tactics this weekend to avoid losing another sprint finish?

The Andersson-Kiszli showdown promises to be one of the best races of the year.

While it may be tough for the rest of the field to beat Andersson and Kiszli, they’ll certainly be doing their best and the fight for bronze is difficult to predict.Top contenders include Pernille Hostrup (Denmark), Rebecca Mann (Australia), Susanna Cicali (Italy), Maria Rei (Portugal), 2022 World Games bronze and silver medalist Eva Barrios (Spain), and Saskia Hockly (South Africa) with an outside chance for Kitty Schiphorst (Netherlands). Hostrup finished 5th in the marathon at Europeans, and 3rd in the short course, so she’s a serious threat for the podium in both events. Rebecca Mann hasn’t raced in Europe this season, but she finished 4th at the World Championships last year and won her spot nationally by a margin. Cicali and Rei are both experienced top end marathoners who know how to handle a large pack. Hockly is only 21 years old, but she’s a rising star in the competitive South African scene across sprint, marathon, and surfski so it could be a break-out race for her.

And Kitty Schiphorst could be a dark horse. She’s a strong sprinter with a background in surf lifesaving as well, but only started marathon training six weeks prior to the World Games when her federation asked her to fill the spot at the last minute. She may struggle with group tactics and portages, but she should have one of the fastest top-end speeds in the field which could give her an advantage.

The race

The long course is an abbreviated 20km versus the usual 30km for men and 26km for women. But it still has eight portages. The differences are likely to create even more action and drama, and could prove advantageous for some racers over others.

In the latest episode of Paddlecast, Billy and Betsy dive deep into what each racer brings to the table and how the unusual course may affect the results. James Russell, Hamish Lovemore, and Kitty Schiphorst contribute their thoughts as well. The episode is available on YouTube (below), Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

How to watch

You can watch the World Games live at https://live.theworldgames.org

Saturday August 9th

K1 Women Short Course Heat 1 – 9:20am local, 2:20am London, 9:20pm New York

K1 Women Short Course Heat 2 – 9:50am local, 2:50am London, 9:50pm New York

K1 Men Short Course Heat 1 – 10:50am local, 3:50am London, 10:50pm New York

K1 Men Short Course Heat 2 – 11:50am local, 4:50am London, 11:50pm New York

K1 Women Short Course Final – 5:00pm local, 10:00am London, 5:00am New York

K1 Men Short Course Final – 5:40pm local, 10:40am London, 5:40am New York

Sunday August 10th

K1 Women Marathon Final – 3:15pm local, 8:15am London, 3:15am New  York

K1 Men Marathon Final – 5:15pm local, 10:15am London, 5:15am New York