Elena Kaliska of Slovakia won the gold medal in women’s single kayak slalom by nearly 15 seconds, successfully defending her top finish at Athens.
Kaliska led after the semi-final and dominated on the whitewater course at the Games yesterday, cleanly navigating her way through the challenging rapids and snaking her way around the 21 gates. Her combined time of 192.64 seconds was 14.30 seconds ahead of silver. Jacqueline Lawrence of Australia took that medal in 206.94 seconds. Austria’s Violetta Oblinger Peters won bronze in 214.77 seconds.
Kaliska punched her first in the air and blew a kiss to the cheering crowd. Stepanka Hilgertova of the Czech Republic and a two-time Olympic gold medalist capsized and was ninth.
PHOTO: EPA
Pavol and Peter Hochschorner also won the gold in double canoe slalom, making it three straight Olympics the brothers from Slovakia have finished first.
The brothers were in second place after the semi-final, but posted the best combined time of 190.82 seconds to earn another set of whitewater medals to add to their collection from the Sydney Games and Athens.
Jaroslav Volf and Ondrej Stepanek of the Czech Republic took the silver medal, finishing 2.07 seconds behind the winners. Mikhail Kuznetsov and Dmitry Larionov of Russia won bronze in 197.37 seconds.
PHOTO: AFP
The German team of Michel Felix and Sebastian Piersig led after the semi-final, but they could not recover once their canoe capsized and finished sixth.
Hong Kong-based cricket team Hung See this weekend found success in their matches in Taiwan, even if none of the results went their way. Hung See played the Chairman’s XI on Saturday morning, the Daredevils that afternoon and PCCT yesterday, with all three home teams winning. The team for Chinese players at the Happy Valley-based Craigengower Cricket Club sends teams on tour to “spread the game of cricket.” This weekend was Hung See’s second trip to Taiwan after visiting Tainan in 2016. “The club has been traveling to all parts of the world since 1982 and the annual tradition continues [with the Taiwan
Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei yesterday advanced to the semi-finals of the women’s doubles at the Australian Open, while Coco Gauff’s dreams of a first women’s singles title in Melbourne were crushed in the quarter-finals by Paula Badosa. World No. 2 Alexander Zverev was ruffled by a stray feather in his men’s singles quarter-final, but he refocused to beat 12th seed Tommy Paul and reach the semi-finals. Third seeds Hsieh and Jelena Ostapenko of Latvia defeated Elena-Gabriela Ruse of Romania and Marta Kostyuk of Ukraine 6-2, 5-7, 7-5 in 2 hours, 20 minutes to advance the semi-finals. Hsieh and Ostapenko converted eight of 14 break
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