A gold medal for Andrew Willows at the World Cup in Hungary

After a silver medal in Croatia, Willows and his teammate Richard Dober of Trois-Rivieres won a gold medal in the 200-metre race in the K-2, during the World Cup in Szeged, Hungary. During their stay in Europe, Willows and Dober won three medals in K-2, gold, silver and a bronze, which is a great way to begin a pre-Olympic year, while setting their sights on the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

In Szeged, Hungary, sprint canoe-kayak is just as important as hockey. "The first day we raced K-4 1000m, things didn't work out for us and we came in a disappointing 13th," states Willows.

The second day, Willows and Dober competed in the 200m race and that's where they finally were able to shine and realize the best performance of their career. "Everything went perfectly and the boat was reacting to every stroke we took. Our technique was beautiful and right from the start we had a one-foot lead. After 90 metres, we picked up the pace and intensity and we continued to paddle away from the rest of the field until the finish line, where we won by about nine feet. This was a perfect race. It proved to us that last year's result was not a fluke and with additional training, we can obtain this speed for the 500m race and win even more races. At the end of the day, there was a novelty event, a 4 x 100m relay in K-1. It was a spectacular race and while K-1 is not really my specialty, we placed 3rd and also won 400 Euros for our efforts."

In K-2, Willows and Dober have developed great chemistry. "When we're in the boat together, it's rarely bad and we're always trying to improve. We raced K-2 500m and K-2 200m at this world cup and we were ahead for 499.8 meters and lost first place at the very end, by "shooting" the boat forward a little too soon. We won't be happy if we don't win a gold medal at the 2008 Olympics."