Sport - Rowing

Hungarians do it for Kolonics

BEIXIAOYING TOWN (CHINA): The Hungarians wore the black armband all week to remember their friend. They added three more colours on the canoe/kayak flatwater course in honour of Gyorgy Kolonics: Olympic gold, silver and bronze.

Attila Vajda, Gyorgy Kozmann, Tamas Kiss and four more of their countrymen all stood on the podium on Friday and dedicated the medals draped around their necks to Kolonics, a canoeing gold medallist at the 1996 and 2000 Olympics who died last month after collapsing in his canoe while training for the Games.

Vajda won the gold medal in men’s 1,000m canoe singles (C-1) in 3m 50.467s.

Germany and Belarus each won two gold medals at the Shunyi Rowing-Canoeing Park and Britain won the other gold. Germany’s Nicole Reinhardt, Fanny Fischer, Katrin Wagner-Augustin and Conny Wassmuth won the women’s 500 K-4 in 1:32.231 to defend its Olympic title.

Fischer and Wagner-Augustin were part of the gold medal foursome in Athens.

Belarus, too, won back-to-back gold medals.

The brother tandem of Andrei and Aliaksandr Bahdanovich took the title in the men’s 1,000 C-2 in 3:36.365, storming from behind to edge out Germany in a thrilling finish. — AP

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