Dzmitry Rabchanka
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Dzmitry Rabchanka (born 1985 in Mazyr) is a Belarusian flatwater canoer and current (2006) world champion in the Canadian canoe C4 500m.
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[edit] Biography
[edit] Early Years
Rabchanka took up canoeing at the age of twelve. His parents were initially reluctant, fearing that the training schedule was interfering with his studies. However he soon started to achieve excellent results in the sport and he was allowed to switch to the local sports academy.[citation needed]
[edit] Professional
In 2004 Rabchenko moved up to the under-23 age-group. This can be a difficult time for many top young paddlers who, after being fêted as junior champions, suddenly find themselves competing against opponents up to three years older. There was never any danger of Rabchanka losing his focus - he was quoted as saying that he had never had any other hobbies or interests ouside canoeing. Now a student at the Mozyr Pedagogical University, Rabchenko knew that, as anineteen-year-old, he would not win any titles at the 2004 European Under-23 Championships in Poznań, Poland, but he achieved his personal target of reaching four different finals, both C4 events and also both C2 finals (500m and 1000m) with Dzmitry Vaitsishkin.
By the start of the 2005 season the young generataion of Belarus canoers had completed their transition from the junior ranks. National coach Viktor Reneysky settled on a C4 1000m line-up of Rabchanka / Vaitsishkin / Shcharbak / Vauchetski. At the 2005 edition of the European Under-23 Championships, they took full advantage of the fast Plovdiv course to win the C4 1000m gold medal and set a new senior world record of 3:15.722. Ironically the previous record, which had stood for sixteen years, had been set by a USSR crew which included Reneysky. Rabchanka also won a bronze medal in the C4 500m.
Two weeks later Rabchanka competed at his first senior championship, finishing fourth in the C4 1000m final at the European Championships in Poznań. At the 2005 World Championships in Zagreb, Croatia, they were switched to the C4 500m event and won their first senior medal by finishing in second place behind defending champions Romania.
In 2006 the young crew began by winning the Belarus Cup trials over all three distances (200m, 500m and 1000m) to become the number one senior national Canadian canoe four. They went on to victories at the prestigious Poznań regatta and then to become senior European and World champions. At the European Championships they took the 200m gold medal, their first. In the C4 1000m they bettered their own world record time but finished behind the German crew of Nuck / Holtz / Lueck / Breuing.
At the 2006 World Championships in Szeged, Hungary, they chose to compete in the 500m instead and duly won their first world title in a time of 1:31.820. In the 200m final they took the silver medal behind the Czech Republic, to the annoyance of coach Nikolay Banko who had expected them to do the "double".
With no C4 events on the Olympic schedule, the four team-mates must now compete against each other for places in the C1 or C2 - Rabchanka has stated his preference for a C2 partnership with Aliaksandr Zhukouski.
[edit] Competition
The "big three" nations in Canadian canoeing are Germany, Hungary and Russia but the Belarus four again dominated the 1000m event at the 2003 World Junior Championships in Komatsu, Japan. They finished 3.8 seconds ahead of Germany and a full seven seconds ahead of the Hungarians and Russians. Their winning time of 3:21.571 would have been enough to reach the final of many senior competitions. Rabchanka also won the silver meda in the C4 500m final.[citation needed]
[edit] Major Titles
He has won major titles in all age-categories. In 2002 he was a member of the Belarus four-man crew which won the C4 1000m gold medal at the European Junior Championships in Zagreb, Croatia. Despite being a year younger than many of their rivals they won ther final by a margin of over three and a half seconds, registering a time of 3:25.83.[citation needed]
