The final slalom medals of the 2012 Olympics were awarded today at the conclusion of the women's kayak class. At this time I haven't seen any actual footage (nothing's up yet on NBC's Olympic website). I only know the results, which are posted here (semifinal) and here (final). So I'll start with some back-story.
Coming into these Games, the world's two top-ranked female kayak racers, Jana Dukatova of Slovakia and Maialen Chourraut of Spain, seemed to be competing on a higher level than anybody else. And they provided us a classic contrast in paddling styles. Dukatova is tall (5'11") with long arms that extend far over the bow of the boat, and paddles with long, smooth strokes at a rather low rate. This makes her appear slower than she actually is. A casual observer might watch her on the course and conclude she's not a contender, only to be surprised to see her name atop the leader board. Chourraut, meanwhile, is a petite 5'3" and uses short, fast strokes to hammer her way down the course.
The captivating rivalry between these two had made K1W the most interesting class to watch for many fans this spring. Coming into London, a couple of others were generating buzz: Austria's Corinna Kuhnle came in as the reigning two-time world champion, and Štěpánka Hilgertová of the Czech Republic, the sentimental favorite competing in her sixth Olympic Games, was looking as good as she'd looked since her gold medal performance in 2000.
These ladies and six more made the semifinal cut and lined up for the final today. And as happened in the other classes this week, the race defied the world rankings.
Hilgertová took the early lead with a penalty-free run, but quickly gave it up to Australia's Jessica Fox. Fox, the daughter of slalom royalty (her father is Richard Fox, the legendary K1 racer, and her mother is Myriam Jerusalmi, a two time world champion and Olympic medalist in women's kayak), had been racing well this season, but not quite at the same level as Dukatova and Chourraut. But her clean run was nearly three seconds faster than Hilgertová's.
Fox and Hilgertová continued to hold the top two spots as the next four racers, among them Kuhnle and Dukatova, could not better their scores. Then it was Emilie Fer's turn, and the Frenchwoman, ranked only seventh in the world coming in, laying down a clean run that was 0.41 second faster than Fox's.
Chourraut came next and took over third place, knocking Hilgertová out of the medals. The final paddler, Poland's Natalia Pacierpnik, was much slower than she was in the semifinal, with a two-second penalty.
And so with Fer's victory, it was a second gold medal for France in this Olympic slalom. Fox, only 18, made her first big step toward matching her parents' excellence in the sport with her silver medal. And Chourraut's bronze medal capped the best slalom Olympics ever for her country: Spain also got a fourth-place finish in C1 by Ander Elosegi and a fifth-place finish in K1 by Samuel Hernanz.
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