ICF President Thomas Konietzko visited Lake Jels in Denmark yesterday to watch the penultimate day of competition at the Canoe Marathon World Championships.

The course included regular portages which saw athletes carry their boat for 80 metres in front of the crowd before returning to the water.

Konietzko is a big fan of portages and said they were the "most exciting part" of this year’s Canoe Sprint World Championships in Duisburg.

The event marked the first time that portages were used in every lap of the women’s and men’s K1 5,000 metres races.

Konietzko told insidethegames that there was potential for portages to be included at the Olympic Games should the K1 5,000m event be added to the programme.

"This long distance has really great potential to become more exciting and more popular among our community," said Konietzko.

"Of course, if it becomes more popular, if we can enable a lot athletes to take part from other disciplines and if access is easier maybe one day we can propose it to the IOC [International Olympic Committee] as a completely new discipline but belonging to our sprint sport."

Konietzko said the addition of regular portages at the Canoe Sprint World Championships was a "natural step" for the event.

"We started two years introducing this new event with portages in our World Cups," said Konietzko.

"Athletes were forced to do three, but we didn’t force them to do it in the same lap, so it was a little bit confusing.

"We adapted this procedure, so they have to do it in the same lap all together.

"Now we have a feeling that we have a really exciting new event which we want to push.

"It was logical that we introduced this as an official World Championships discipline last week in Duisburg."

Denmark’s Mads Pedersen overcame double Olympic medallist Fernando Pimenta of Portugal to win men’s K1 5,000m gold in Duisburg, while the women’s title was won by Spain’s Estefanía Fernández.

Danish Canoe Federation President Tom Faurschou said he was also in favour of K1 5,000m races with portages being added to the Olympics.

"As you can see from the canoe marathon, portages bring some action-packed moments and could bring in more viewers to the sport," Faurschou told insidethegames.

"You are also quite close to the athletes so you can feel how they are doing and see the pain.

"It’s a good visible way to show how the sport is impacting you.

"When you are paddling hard into the portages, the blood is coming through your legs and when you coming out your lactate is going into your arms.

"I don’t think we should sell out the history but hopefully with the Olympic community and ICF we can have a talk around getting additional medals.

"We have also got the kayak cross going into the Olympics and the medals there were taken out of the sprint.

"We should not compete with each other in the sport to get into the Olympics but I think we have to try to get two or three more medals so we can develop the sport and make it visible and attract more viewers to the sport."

Konietzko said he was also delighted with the staging of the Canoe Marathon World Championships at Lake Jels as the event is return to Denmark in 2027 with Silkeborg due to play host.

"It’s always good to be in Denmark as they always organise a competition on a professional level which is what our athletes deserve," said Konietzko.

"We had the Canoe Sprint World Championships here during COVID in 2021 and now after the European Championships in marathon we have a highlight here with this year’s World Championships in marathon.

"There is a very special atmosphere because there are families here and a lot of locals want to watch our competitions and our athletes feel very welcome and are very happy with the conditions that they find here."