Maksym Prokopenko

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Maksym Prokopenko (born 23 March 1984 in Mykolayiv) is a Ukrainian flatwater canoer.

Prokopenko was the individual Canadian canoe (C1) 500m silver medallist at the 2002 Junior Euopean Championships in Zagreb, Croatia

One of a number of highly promising young Ukrainian sprint canoers who were promoted to the senior squad in 2004, Prokopenko adapted to senior competition with ease. Despite often being the youngest competitor in the field he has already reached nine consecutive C2 finals at the European and world championships (i.e., finishing in the top nine).

The only time he failed to reach the final was at the 2004 Olympics, where he and partner Ruslan Dzhalilov were eliminated in the semi-finals in both the C2 500m and C2 1000m. As fastest losers in the 500m they did at least finish with a tenth-place classification.

For the 2006 season Prokopenko formed a new partnership with Sergiy Bezuglyy, also from the Dynamo-Kolos club in Mykolayiv. The new pairing finished sixth (C2 500m) and ninth (C2 1000m) at the European championships in Račice, Czech Republic. But their major breakthrough came a month later at the World Championships in Szeged, Hungary, where they won the first senior medals of their careers, finishing in the bronze medal position in the C2 1000m final ahead of defending champions Christian Gille and Tomasz Wylenzek of Germany.