Isaquias Queiroz won the C1 500m gold at the 2026 ICF Canoe Sprint World Championships in Poznan, Poland, securing his fifth world title in the discipline and his eighth career Canoe Sprint world gold.
A clean race on Lake Malta
On Saturday 29 August, the 32-year-old Brazilian covered the distance in 1min46s08. He led through the middle section and held his line as the Czech Martin Fuksa pressed from lane five.
China's Bowen Ji took bronze, but the duel at the front stayed narrow until Queiroz opened a decisive half-boat gap with forty metres left. The win brought Brazil its first gold of the championships.
Five crowns across a decade
Queiroz has now won the C1 500m in 2013, 2014, 2018, 2022 and 2026. No other canoeist has matched that consistency over a single distance in the modern era.
The medal lifted his career World Championship tally to 15 — eight gold, one silver and six bronze — and ended a four-year wait for a global podium. His last world title had also come in the C1 500m, in 2022.
"Estou muito feliz, campeão mundial novamente," Queiroz told reporters afterwards. "Hoje eu vim com tudo. Vida de atleta é assim, um ano a gente está bem, dois anos a gente está mal. Um dia ruim, um ano ruim, não quer dizer que eu seja ruim."
The C1 500m will not appear at Los Angeles 2028. The Olympic distance remains the C1 1000m, an event Fuksa has dominated and one where Queiroz has yet to step onto the rostrum.
