Dianora De Bilio secured a brilliant maiden medal for Great Britain on day two of the 2025 ICF Canoe Marathon World Championships in Hungary.
After claiming two world titles on a hectic opening day of short course in Gyor, GB were quickly back in the medals once more as attention switched to the longer distances.
De Bilio produced a powerful finish to claim a well-deserved bronze in the junior women’s K1.
“It hasn’t really sunk in yet, but I’m very happy and really looking forward to tomorrow as well,” said the under 16s paddler who still has two more years of racing in the junior category.
And after success in KL1 on day one, former Paralympic champion Jeanette Chippington picked up her second gold medal of the championships in the women’s senior VL2 race.
The junior women’s K1 race was first off where, having finished fourth over the short course, De Bilio lined up with team-mate Kamila Sklenarova in a 33-strong field.
A four-strong group, headed by short course champion Lili Kolozsvari and silver medallist Caroline Heuser, quickly pulled out a gap, with the British pair tucking into a six-strong chase group.
Home favourite Kolozsvari and Karen Andersen, of Denmark, powered clear in a decisive move.
But a slimmed down chase group, containing De Bilio, worked well together and by the fourth lap had hauled in and dropped Heuser and Polish paddler Zuzanna Rynkiewicz.
With Koloszvari making the decisive break for gold approaching the final portage, The Royal Canoe Club paddler was now in a three-way fight for the final podium place with Cecilia Abascia, of Italy, and Irish rival Lucy Cullen.
And the Royal Club competitor made her move at the portage, building a gap with a clean take out and put in to break her rivals and sprint clear to the line in 1:27:56.04.
A well-paced performance brought Sklenarova home in eighth in 1:31:26.77.
“It was a very dramatic race, it wasn’t great off the start and I took it piece by piece,” said De Bilio.
“I wasn’t even thinking about catching up, in my mind I just wanted to match fourth from yesterday. I would have been happy with fifth as well, then I just went from there. I kept my portages strong.”
And there was a fine international debut for Richmond’s Isabella Keane in the junior women’s C1 final, raced over 10.7k.
With the top four pulling out a gap to the rest, Keane tucked into a chase group of five and worked with Niloufar Amir-Tahmasseb to detach the other three paddlers.
Keane was eventually dropped by the Frenchwoman, but finished strongly to cross the line alone in sixth, clocking 1:03:33.41.
After securing 15th place in short-distance, Keane’s Richmond clubmate and mentor, Owen Chisholm took on the 18.1k course in the U23 men’s C1 final.
He settled into a group just outside of the top 10 and produced even splits through the four long laps.
Having worked with Konrad Morawski, Chisholm pipped the Canadian on the run to the line to claim 12th spot in a time of 1:38:39.34.
Katie Brookes made a great start to the U23 women’s K1 final, raced over a 21.8k course, and was well placed in a front-running group of seven on the first lap of six.
But the Richmond Canoe Club paddler dropped off the back at the start of lap two and into a large chase group.
At the midway point Brookes was in a group from sixth to 12th as the race began to splinter, but faded to finish 15th in the 24-strong field with a time of 1:50:17.19.
The last to go on day two was the U23 men’s K1 where Joe Enoch, a junior world K2 silver medalist 12 months ago, was up for GB in a big field of 36.
With world champion Philip Knudsen and Bruno Kolozsvari setting a hot pace and splintering the field, Enoch settled into a group just outside the top 20.
Working with Dutchman Rik Te Linde and Samuel Butcher, of South Africa, was 21st after the third of seven laps before completing the gruelling 25.5k distance in 1:57.02 for 22nd.
In the Paracanoe events, Tim Lodge finished agonisingly out of the medals after a close-fought senior men’s KL3 final.
The Wey Kayak Club paddler, who claimed KL3 silver in an exhibition race at the European Championships in June, worked with a three-strong chase group behind an early break from a strong trio.
Lodge was 27 seconds behind the leaders by the end of lap one, but with a third of the 10km distance left, he had bridged the gap to make it a four-way medal shootout.
The Brit lost a little ground by the end of lap two, and he was unable to react, finishing in 49:30.82, just 22 seconds outside the final podium place.
Lining up in an 11-man field in the senior men’s KL2, Jon White made a positive start, but was unable to stop the frontrunners from breaking away.
He then held station in fifth for much of the race to post 54:03.88.
“It was a tough race,” said White, who picked up an open physical impairment gold medal on Thursday.
“There was more wind coming down with the flow, which made the upstream section brutal. I had a great start, but didn’t get myself into the best position going into the turn.
“And then it was just a hard slog upstream and I ended up going it alone.”
With the VL2 race falling under the ICF minimum threshold of six paddlers, Chippington’s gold was not classified as an official world title.
But she was the clear winner over the 6k course, crossing the line in 37:05.32, more than a minute-and-a-half ahead of silver medallist Dalma Boldizvar, of Hungary.
“It was tough, it was really hot today and there was much more wind,” she said.
“Going into the headwind I didn’t feel it too much, but it was cooling me down, but as soon as we turned from the top end, it went up by about 10 degrees, so it was hard going.”
More British medals could be offing on day three, with junior men’s K1 short-course champion Will Short going over the longer course.
James Russell will also be in action, looking to add a world long-distance medal to his European senior men’s K1 title.
The full results and schedule can be found here.
Live streaming of the event can be found on Planet Canoe’s YouTube channel.