The final day of canoe sprint action at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games provided some heart-stopping action.
Team USA’s Nevin Harrison, who took home a gold in Tokyo, faced off against Katie Vincent of Canada in the women’s C-1 200m sprint.
The quickest of all the events on the program in Paris was decided by the finest margin, as Vincent beat out Harrison by just one one-hundredth of a second. Vincent’s time of 44.12 was a world record, and the top-six paddlers all finished within a second of each other.
New Zealand’s Lisa Carrington ties gold-medal record
Lisa Carrington of New Zealand, known back home as “the GOAT in the Boat” cemented her place in canoe sprint history by equaling the all-time record of eight gold medals.
She completed the sweep of Olympic gold in her three events with yet another in the K-1 500m sprint. It was not easy as Carrington was pushed early in the race and trailed at the halfway point, but her closing speed was just too much and she ended up winning by more than a second.
Carrington led the way for New Zealand in both the K-2 500m and K-4 500m sprints to take home three golds at these Olympic Games and raise her total to eight. At 35-years-old, one of the storylines of the next Olympic cycle will be whether Carrington can make the push for L.A. and go for another gold to break the record.
SEE MORE: Lisa Carrington sails to eighth gold medal with K-1 500m win
Dostal of Czechia edges out Hungarian pair in men’s K-1 1000m
Czechia’s Josef Dostal held off a charge from two Hungarian paddlers, Adam Varga and Balint Kopasz, to win the men’s K-1 1000m sprint.
The win gave Czechia its second gold medal of these Olympics Games in canoe sprint, and kept Hungary off the top step of the podium in any event in Paris.
As the most successful country in the sport’s history at the Olympics, leaving without a gold medal will go down as a huge disappointment.
SEE MORE: Czechia’s Dostal beats out Hungarians in men’s K-1 1000m
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