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Paris: New Zealander Lisa Carrington stunned the world by winning the women’s single kayak 500m in the third and final race at the Wells-sur-Marne Nautical Stadium on Saturday, completing a stunning sweep of all the gold medals at the Olympics.
Tamara Chipes of Hungary won the silver medal and Emma Astland Jorgensen of Denmark won the bronze medal. Carrington once again demonstrated her powerful hitting ability and tenacious will to win and finally won the championship.
In the men’s single canoe 1000m, Czech Republic’s Josef Dostal pulled off an incredible win, holding off strong challenges from silver medalist Adam Varga of Hungary and Balint Kopasz, who won gold in Tokyo but only bronze in Paris.
In the final of the Olympic sailing event, Canada’s Katie Vincent defeated the United States’ Nevin Harrison by one hundredth of a second to win the women’s 200-meter single rowing championship, while Cuba’s Cirillo Dubois won the bronze medal.
Harrison started strongly but his slim lead faded in the final 50 metres as Vincent snatched the win after a photo finish.
Carrington, often called the “greatest canoeist of all time” in her hometown, finished the Games with an Olympic record-breaking time of 1:47.36 to win the singles kayak event, and also won gold medals in the four-person and two-person kayak events.
Hungarian Csipes put great pressure on the New Zealander and took the lead at one point, but Carrington caught up and won the championship with a lead of more than a second. Jorgensen defeated New Zealander Aimee Fisher to win the bronze medal.
Saturday’s gold medal was Carrington’s eighth Olympic title, making her the most successful New Zealand Olympian to date.
“The Olympics have given me much more than medals. I don’t think you can calculate how much I have learned and grown in the past five years,” Carrington said excitedly.
“I think it was just sticking to my plan, which is really hard to do when you’re out there and the girls are so strong, so I had to be really disciplined and trust my conditioning in the second half of the race.”
Portugal’s Fernando Pimenta took the lead at the start of the men’s race, but his challenge faded as Kopasz and Dostal caught up.
Dostal then rushed to the front and paddled hard to hold off a late charge from the Hungarian duo and eventually won the gold medal in 3:24.07, 0.69 seconds faster than Val. (Reporting by Philip O’Connor; Editing by Ken Ferris and Christian Radneich)
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