Cooper Walz was born in Oxford, England, as the son of an Englishman and a German from Heidelberg . His parents separated just three months after his birth and his mother moved with her son to the Spanish island of Mallorca , where his mother's relatives already lived. At the age of 12, Walz started canoeing training in the Club Nautico in Portopetro , a fishing village in the southeast of Mallorca, by chance . At the age of 15 he was delegated to a training center in Asturias because of his achievements , later he moved to the flower center in Madrid . Walz is currently studying media informatics in Madrid.
Sporting successes
At the 41st Canoe Racing World Championships in Moscow in August 2014 , the then 19-year-old Spaniard first attracted attention. In an extremely close decision, Walz won bronze, the only medal for Spain over 500 m in the kayak single. One year later, Walz and his partner Diego Cosgaya were able to fight for silver in a two-man kayak in Milan . In the Olympic final in Rio, Walz was not considered a candidate for a medal, so his Olympic victory came as a surprise. At the post-Olympic World Championships in Račice, Czech Republic, Walz confirmed that his Olympic victory was not a flash in the pan. With partner Rodrigo Germade he became world champion for the first time in K2 over 500 m, in K4 he won silver over the same distance. Before that he had already become European champion over 1000 m with the K4 in Plovdiv, Bulgaria.
swell
Mallorca newspaper No. 850 18.-24. August 2016 p. 18
Olympic champion in a single kayak over 1000 meters