Canadian kayaker wins bronze

A year or so ago, veteran kayaker Eirik Larsen agreed to take in a precocious kid from Canada and share with him some of the secrets of the powerful Norwegian paddling team.
It wasn’t long before Larsen realized the person sleeping on his sofa was developing into a threat—something Adam van Koeverden reminded him of today at the Olympics.
Van Koeverden jumped out to an early lead in the men’s K-1 1,000-m final at the Summer Games and held it halfway through the race.
But he couldn’t maintain his blistering speed for the full kilometre and ended up winning a bronze medal in a nine-boat field packed with medal contenders.
Larsen chased down his former guest to win the gold.
“After he trained with us, he became very good,” said Larsen. “I don’t know if that was the reason but he took a big step forward. He beat me in the worlds in 2003.”
In all, Van Koeverden spent five weeks training with the Norwegians in Oslo last year. After his silver-medal performance at the 2003 worlds, the native of Oakville, Ont. essentially was given the boot by his hosts.
“[The Norwegian coach] came up to me and said, ‘You’re getting too dangerous,’” said van Koeverden. “I’ve trained with Eirik since, but we used to go every day, twice a day together.
“This year, it was more like twice a week.”
The 22-year-old Canadian’s solid performance was no surprise to Larsen.
“Of course I was afraid of him for this race,” said the 28-year-old Norwegian. “I’m just happy that I beat him, but I’m also happy that he got a medal.”
Larsen says van Koeverden has learned a lot from the Norwegians.
“All the paddlers are at a very high level,” he remarked. “That’s why I took the decision and told him that he couldn’t train with our group this year.”
While it was Larsen’s coach who actually gave van Koeverden the news, Larsen said it ultimately was his decision.
“Of course, I told him it was my coach who came up with the decision,” Larsen said with a laugh.
But van Koeverden says there are no hard feelings and both say they’re still friends.
“We’re very respectful of each other,” said van Koeverden, who steered his kayak over to Larsen following the race and shook his hand.
Larsen, the 2001 and 2002 world champion who won a bronze later in the day in the K-2 1,000-m, was first in three minutes, 25.897 seconds, ahead of New Zealand’s Ben Fouhy—the 2003 world champion—in 3:27.413.
Van Koeverden finished in 3:28.218. He went out hard but eventually was caught and narrowly won the bronze over Australian Nathan Baggaley.
Stephen Giles of Lake Echo, N.S. finished fifth in the C-1 1,000-m canoe final in his final Olympic race. A bronze medallist four years ago in Sydney, the 32-year-old paddler challenged at the 750-m mark but was overtaken and fell back.
Spain’s David Cal won the race, toppling Germany’s Andreas Dittmer, the defending gold medallist and three-time defending world champion at 1,000 metres.
“I’m a bit disappointed with the result,” Giles said. “It was a pretty good race for me. The first 250 was really good. I felt like I was moving at about the right pace.”
A 15-year member of the national team, Giles was competing in his fourth Olympics. “I’m sad and happy all at the same time,” he remarked.