The last day of racing at Eton Dorney produced four more Olympic champions. They are the first ever at the 200-meter distance.
In K1, Ed McKeever of Great Britain, who trains on Dorney Lake, emerged from a crowded field to take the gold as a delighted home crowd looked on. Spaniard Saul Craviotto Rivero won silver and Mark de Jonge of Canada took the bronze. Hungary and Germany may be the superpowers of flatwater sprint, but paddlers from Britain, Spain, and Canada have acquitted themselves very well in this regatta.
Tim Hornsby of the United States finished seventh in the B-final to earn 15th place overall in 200-meter K1.
In C1, Yuri Cheban of Ukraine had a great start and the rest of the field found itself playing catch-up from the beginning. There just isn't much room to come from behind in a 200-meter race, and Cheban kept his lead all the way to the finish. Jevgenij Shuklin of Lithuania took the silver and Russia's Ivan Shtyl' claimed the bronze in this sweep for the former Soviet bloc.
The female kayakers were up next, and 23-year-old Lisa Carrington of New Zealand, who came in ranked number one in the world in this event, capped her outstanding season with Olympic gold. She was joined on the podium by two ladies who had already medaled in 500-meter events earlier in the week: Inna Osypenko-Radomska of Ukraine in second and Natasa Janics of Hungary in third.
The final event was the K2, and the Russians were just too good. They didn't have the best start, but Yury Postrigay and Alexander Dyachenko quickly moved into the lead and won the race in dominating fashion. Belarussians Raman Piatrushenka and Vadzim Makhneu won the silver, and the home crowd got to celebrate once more as Liam Heath and Jon Schofield of Great Britain took the bronze.
And with that, the final Olympic paddle stroke has been taken until 2016. About 330 athletes took part in the slalom and sprint events at the London Olympics. The great majority of them will now go home empty-handed. And that's not a bad thing: winning an Olympic medal is, and should be, a rare feat achieved by a select few. Those who do not medal should be regarded with dignity for having "fought well," as the Olympic Creed states.
The other day I mentioned that Arezou Hakimimoghaddam of the Islamic Republic of Iran was the lone woman eliminated from the heats of the 500-meter K1W, and I hope nobody thought I was snickering at that; I was not. My guess is that being a female athlete in Iran is not the easiest thing to do, and yet, as NBC announcer Tim Gannon remarked after she was eliminated from the 200-meter heats yesterday, around the venue she never failed to have a smile on her face. THAT is what we need to be celebrating when the Olympics rolls around every four years.
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