Ireland’s campaign at the 2025 ICF Canoe Freestyle World Championships brought home a total of five medals from a wide range of categories at the event in Plattling, Germany. The Isar Wave is a well known spot for the team, having competed with great success in two World Cup events on the same feature in 2024. This experience showed clearly with Ireland adding two new World Champions to the ranks of the team, along with three more medals brought home from the event.
The competition itself came to a premature end two days early, with water levels on the river falling below the minimum requirement set by the German Canoe Federation. This meant the medals were awarded based on the results of the last round of the event which had been completed. While this was not the end to the competition anyone would have wanted, with many paddlers missing the opportunity to improve their placings, Team Ireland’s strong performances throughout the competition meant the Team would not be coming home empty handed.
One of the biggest highlights of the event was Eoghan Kelly being crowned World Champion in the Men’s Open Canoe. Having put in a brilliant performance to finished first in the opening round of the event, Eoghan’s result stood and delivered the gold medal to Ireland. Speaking after the event Eoghan spoke about the exciting upward trajectory Irish freestyle is currently on, as well as some of the challenges he experience this year in his preparation the event. Having been kept off the water for much of the winter through illness, Eoghan had just six weeks to get competition ready, and expressed his delight at the training paying off.
Ireland also had a second World Champion crowned at the event, with Tom Dunphy taking gold in the Masters Mens Kayak. This incredible achievement was made all the more poignant as Tom was also closing in on ten years of paddling every single day, a challenge Tom was taking on as tribute to his late sister, Emma Dunphy.
Also finding success in the Masters event was Aisling Griffin. Who took home a bronze medal in the Women’s Kayak event.
The 2025 World Championships also played host to the first ever Cadets International Open, an event for younger freestyle paddlers to experience the buzz of a major freestyle competition, and get a chance to compete against their peers from around the globe. The future of freestyle in Ireland is clearly very bright with Luke Bermingham bringing home a silver Cadets medal in the Men’s Kayak, along with Coline Kearney taking bronze in the Women’s Kayak.
The early end to the competition also meant an unfortunate early end to the campaigns of David McClure (K1M), Leah Hough (K1W), and Béibhin Butler (K1W & C1W). All three were progressing through the phases of the competition very strongly, and were showing great potential to add to Ireland’s medal haul.
