Andorra's Mònica Doria Finishes 10th in Prague Canoe Heats Despite Penalties

Mònica Doria, Andorra's European canoe champion and Olympic diploma winner, achieved a 10th-place finish in the canoe heats at the Prague World Cup on Saturday, narrowing the gap to the final after incurring six seconds in penalties for touching gates 12, 17 and 18.

Competing for the Federació Andorrana de Canoa i Caiac (FACC) and Cadí CK, Doria clocked 127.89 seconds, placing her 12.88 seconds behind Australia's Jessica Fox, who set the fastest time of 121.01 seconds. She passed ninth after the first split in 25.04 seconds and eighth after the second sector, staying in contention until mid-course penalties dropped her just outside the top 12. Without those faults, her pace would have secured a finals spot.

The result marked an improvement from Friday's kayak heats, where Doria debuted this season—having skipped the Tacen opener to focus on Olympic-qualifying events—with a 17th-place finish. There, her 122.28-second run included two two-second penalties for gates 17 and 22, leaving her 10.13 seconds off Fox's pace in kayak and 2.66 seconds behind 12th-placed Sona Stanovska of Slovakia. Fox won kayak gold ahead of Poland's Klaudia Zwolinska and Slovakia's Zuzana Pankova.

Doria started her run in kayak at 12.30pm with bib 13. Ahead of the event on her favoured Prague course, she expressed strong motivation despite no Olympic points at stake. She aimed to give everything in a World Cup setting and build competition rhythm, as her coach Cristian Tobio noted these early stops prepare for the world championships.

Doria's Prague campaign concludes Sunday with kayak cross time trials from 10.15am, where she seeks to surpass her prior results.