Sport Canoe sprint Height 1.96 m Children Alexandra Makhneu Role Olympic athlete Parents Gennady Makhnev | Name Vadzim Makhneu Spouse Alina Makhneu (m. 2005) Club Dynamo Minsk Weight 100 kg | |
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Born 21 December 1979 (age 44) ( 1979-12-21 ) Minsk, Belarus Similar People Raman Piatrushenka, Alexander Dyachenko, Yury Postrigay, Liam Heath, Jon Schofield | ||
2012 London Olympic Games Canoeing Men's K-2 200m Final A. & Victory Ceremony. (16:9)
Vadzim Henadzevich Makhneu (Belarusian: Вадзім Генадзевіч Махнеў) or Vadim Makhnev Russian: Вадим Махнев; born 21 December 1979) is a Belarusian flatwater canoeist who has competed since 2000. Competing in three Summer Olympics, he won three medals with a gold (K-4 1000 m: 2008), a silver (K-2 200m: 2012) and two bronzes (K-2 500 m: 2004, 2008).
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Career
Makhneu never represented Belarus as a junior but won four European championship gold medals for his country at under-23 level as a member of the K-4 crew.
In 2001 he was promoted to the senior K-4 boat and won his first senior medals at the European championships in Milan (K-4 500 m bronze and K-4 1000 m bronze). A year later the same crew went to the world championships in Seville and took the K-4 500 m silver medal.
In 2003, Makhneu formed a K-2 partnership with Raman Piatrushenka, moving to Mozyr to work under Piatrushenka's coach Vladimir Shantarovich. In their first season together the pair won the 500 m silver medal at the world championships in Gainesville, USA.
Both men were still competing in the K-4 as well and had won another 500 m European medal, this time silver, in 2004.
This decision was amply rewarded in 2005 when the Belarus K-4 500 m crew of Piatrushenka/Abalmasau/Turchyn/Makhneu were crowned first European and then world champions.
He would win nine more medals at the ICF Canoe Sprint World Championships with a bronze in 2006 (K-4 1000 m), two more in 2007 (K-2 200 m: gold, K-2 500 m: silver), and four golds in 2009 (K-2 200 m, K-2 500 m, K-4 200 m, K-4 1000 m), and in 2010, a gold (K-2 500 m) and a silver (K-4 1000 m).
In 2005 Makhneu secretly married Alina, a receptionist of the hotel he had lived in while training in Mozyr.
His father, Gennady, finished seventh for the Soviet Union in the K-4 1000 m event at the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow.