Ricarda_Funk
Ricarda Funk
German slalom canoeist
Ricarda Funk (born 15 April 1992) is a German slalom canoeist who has competed at the international level since 2008, specializing in the K1 discipline and since 2021 also in kayak cross.[1]
Funk won the gold medal in the K1 event at the delayed 2020 Tokyo Olympics. This gold medal came after the disappointment of 2016, when she failed to qualify for the Rio games after losing to Melanie Pfeifer in the internal German qualification.
Funk won eight medals at the ICF Canoe Slalom World Championships including 5 individual medals. She won her first individual world K1 title in 2021 in Bratislava and then retained the title in 2022 in Augsburg. She also won silver in 2015 and two bronzes back-to-back in 2017 and 2018. The remaining three medals came from the K1 team events as part of the German team. These include two golds in 2017 and 2022 and a silver in 2018.[2]
By winning the 2021 World K1 title as well as the Olympic K1 gold at the delayed Tokyo games, Funk became the first canoe slalom athlete to win both an Olympic and a World title in the same discipline in the same year. A feat that is unlikely to be repeated since the World Championships typically don't take place in Olympic years.
Funk won 9 medals (4 golds, 3 silvers and 2 bronzes) at the European Championships, including a gold, a silver and a bronze at the 2023 European Games in Kraków. Six of these medals are in individual events (3 golds, 1 silver and 1 bronze in K1 and 1 silver in kayak cross). She was able to win the European K1 title in her first ever appearance at the 2014 European Canoe Slalom Championships in Vienna.[2]
Funk won the overall World Cup title in the K1 class in 2016 and 2017.[2] As of 2023 she has amassed 11 World Cup wins and 21 podiums. With the exception of one bronze in kayak cross, all of these podiums were in K1.
Funk was the year-end World No. 1 in 2017.[3]
