The first home gold was earned at the Canoe Slalom European Championships when Slovakia won the women's canoe team event ©ECA

Hosts Slovakia celebrated gold on the second day of the Canoe Slalom European Championships as Emanuela Luknarova, Zuzana Pankova and Sona Stanovska won the women's canoe team event.

The men's canoe team event gold medal went to Germany on day two of competition at the Ondrej Cibak Whitewater Canoe Slalom course in Liptovsky Mikulaš.

Only three of the women’s teams managed to get to the finish without incurring a 50-second penalty.

The Slovak team took gold ahead of French representatives Laurene Roisin, Marjorie Delassus and Lucie Baudu, with the Czech Republic trio of Tereza Fišerova and Satkova sisters Gabriela and Martina winning bronze.

In a men’s race where all the teams made mistakes, Germany’s Sideris Tasiadis, Franz Anton and Timo Trummer profited from making the least.

Germany won the men's canoe team event at the Canoe Slalom European Championships in Slovakia today ©ECA
Germany won the men's canoe team event at the Canoe Slalom European Championships in Slovakia today ©ECA

They finished three seconds ahead of Poland’s Grzegorz Hedwig, Kacper Sztuba and Michal Wiercioch.

Spain’s Luis Fernandez, Miquel Trave and Ander Elosegi were third, four and a half seconds behind the Germans.

The home trio of Matej Benuš, Alexander Slafkovsky and Marko Mirgorodsky had performed very encouragingly in the morning’s heats but missed out on a medal by one place.

However the hosts enjoyed huge success in the morning’s heats of the women’s and men’s C1 competition, with their three male representatives filling the three top places for the semi-finals, scheduled for Sunday (May 29).

Matej Benuš, the Rio 2016 silver medallist, produced the fastest time, and was more than two and a half seconds in front of two locals from Liptovsky Mikulaš - Slafkovsky in second place and Mirgorodsky in third position.

In the women's canoe heats Britain’s Kimberley Woods and Mallory Franklin finished first and second respectively while Monica Doria Vilarrubla from Andorra finished the first stage of the competition in third place.

As on the previous day the heats produced numerous upsets.

The defending champion in the women's C1, Spain's Miren Lazkano, failed to qualify for the semi-finals, as did Tokyo 2020 bronze medallist and 2019 world champion Andrea Herzog.

Vaclav Chaloupka of the Czech Republic, the reigning world champion in men's C1, will also miss the semi-finals as well as Ander Elosegi, the 2016 European bronze medallist and 2019 world silver medallist.

Action at this European Canoe Association event continues tomorrow with the women's and men's K1 semi-finals and final, and, later in the day, extreme slalom time trials.