New Zealand and China successfully defended their titles, Germany picked up gold with a crew put together at the last minute and Czech Martin Fuksa finally broke through for his first Olympic medal on a dramatic day of Canoe Sprint racing at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.
Kiwi dynamo Lisa Carrington won her seventh Olympic gold medal to move within one of German legend Birgit Fischer when she teamed up with Alicia Hoskin for the women’s kayak double 500m gold.
“We just had a plan, we just stuck to our strategy and our strengths, and I guess at the end of the day it’s the performance that we can put together,” Carrington said.
“Crossing the line, it wasn’t relief, or ‘wow we did it’- it was more like it felt so cool to do it together. It will sink in eventually that we have just won the gold medal, it’s just nuts. I’m sure Alicia doesn’t even realise that she’s going to have two gold medals around her neck.”
The New Zealanders finished more than two seconds ahead of Hungary’s Tamara Csipes and Alida Dora Gazso, while Germany’s Paulina Paszek and Jule Marie Hake finished in a dead heat with Hungary’s Noemi Pupp and Sara Fojt for the bronze medal.
Carrington will get the chance to become the equal most successful Canoe Sprint gold medal winner when she attempts to defend the kayak single 500m title on Saturday.
The Chinese crew of Shixiao Xu and Mengya Sun have never been beaten at an international women’s canoe double 500m race, and on Friday added the Paris Olympic gold to the Games title they won in Tokyo.
The Chinese took the lead early in the final, gradually beating off all challengers to win by 1.5 seconds.
“It’s not easy at all, we are really proud of it,” Xu said.
“We only care about the results, we don’t care about the rank or the gold medals, we just want to have a better result after every event.”
The Ukrainian combination of Liudmyla Luzan and Anastasiia Rybachok repeated their silver medal performance from Tokyo three years earlier and spoke of the difficulties preparing for these Olympics.
“Before Tokyo we thought it was hard conditions to prepare because of Covid, but now we really understand that war is a bigger problem, not Covid,” Luzan said.
“It was very hard for us because we needed to go to the shelter, we don’t have a lot of life, so it was very hard conditions to prepare. So today it was a performance to give us great pleasure.”
Bronze went to Canada’s Sloan MacKenzie and Katie Vincent.
A last-minute decision to split the German kayak four in half and race two kayak double boats paid dividends, with Max Lemke and Jacob Schopf storming to an impressive gold medal despite very few races together.
“This year at the Poznan World Cup was the first time we were in a K2 together,” Lemke said.
“The focus was 100 per cent on our K4, so we didn’t spend much time in the K2. It was just an add on and it turned out really good.”
It was sweet revenge for Schopf, who had to settle for silver in Tokyo in the men’s kayak double 1000m. The crew that pipped the Germans for gold on that day finished third on Friday, while Hungary’s Bence Nadas and Sandor Totka took the silver.
Reigning men’s canoe 1000m world champion Fuksa came to Paris with two consecutive fifth placings at the Olympics but was leaving nothing to chance on Friday. Fuksa charged to the front from the start, and then defied running down by defending champion Isaquias Guimaraes Queiroz of Brazil.
“Finally, I have so many medals from European and World Championships, and now finally I take a gold medal from the Olympics, the best gold medal that I have,” Fuksa said.
“I’m really happy now. Dreams come true. My Fuksa team is a team from a small town in Czech Republic, we just love this sport and we’re training there every day. It’s not just my medal, it is all my family’s.”
Moldova’s Serghei Tarnovschi repeated his performance from Tokyo, finishing third.
On Saturday, the Canoe Sprint competition at Paris 2024 will come to an end, with gold medals to be decided in the men’s and women’s K1 events and the women’s canoe single 200m.
