Michal Martikan Birthday is 18th May 1979 in Liptovsky
Mikulas, Czechoslovakia) is a slalom canoeist.
In 1996 he became the first
athlete to win an Olympic gold medal game for Slovakia since the country gained
independence 1993rd All in all, he won four Olympic medals (two gold and two
silver), the highest among all the slalom canoeists. He also won the world
title in the C-1 category four times. He is seen by many of the largest C-1
slalom canoeists than alive. At age 16 the youngest winner Michal Martikan
World Cup canoe event. Three months later, aged 17, was in sixth place Martikan
after the first ride in the canoe single slalom at the Olympic Games 1996th
With nothing to lose, everything went into the second round, and only exceeded
champion Lukas Pollert result of the Czech Republic.
Martikan is the first
Olympic champion, representing an independent Slovakia. He entered the 2000
Olympics as a favorite, because it is consistently finished near the top in
every major competition in every World Cup series. The Sydney Games, Martikan
registered the best result in qualifying, but was only in fifth place after the
first run in the final. In the second run, he paddled a perfect trajectory and
its time was the fastest in the round. He was promoted to the silver medal
behind Tony Estanguet of France. Competing in his third Olympic Games in 2004,
Martikan again led the qualifying round.
He also scored the most points in the
semifinals, which serves also as a first course of the past. After the second
run showed that Martikan won the Olympic title, but the judges decided that his
controversial two-second penalty, which it in the second, only 12 hundredths of
a second behind Estanguet pushed. But Michal Martikan victory was only slalom
canoeist to four Olympic medals; it has also won a gold medal at the 2008
Olympics in the men's slalom C-1.
